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| | | Unhappy new year: what can we learn from movies set in 2022? | | by Charles Bramesco Jan 3, 2022 | | From murderous mayhem in The Purge to the grim dystopia of Soylent Green, writers have predicted very bad things for the next 12 months It’s gotten rather tricky to calibrate the the annual relative quotient of tragedy. (For the future reference of misery-focused sociologists, that’s the ARQT.) 2021 was a year of tribulation closing out with a backslide into the same rampant viral spread that we saw in square one of the pandemic that just won’t end – but hey, at least it’s not 2020 anymore. As it becomes apparent that we will have to accept a few massive catastrophes as the new status quo, assessing the quality of life turns into a matter of degrees, weighing each fresh stretch of hardship against the last. It may prove some cold comfort to note that things have, by sheer numbers, gotten slightly better since last year. The corollary to this way of thinking, however, is the understanding that our circumstances can always get worse. Just take a look at the films set in the year 2022, united as they are in agreement that something horrible is just waiting to happen. There’s a futuristic sheen to the number, as if a robot’s stuttering while giving a readout of two, that’s compelled a handful of film-makers to select this date as the point at which a major crisis comes to pass. Whether it’s a chance armageddon landing at an inopportune time or a boiling-over that our species has been building to for years, the movies have marked 2022 as cursed. The only hope as we approach the beginning of another year is that whatever challenges await us, they won’t have the terrible finality of the world-enders listed below. Read on for a smorgasbord of possible apocalypses imagined for the coming months, and take some solace in the small consolation that we have yet to start eating each other: Continue reading... | | | | | Romaine Hart: an inspiring figure who reinvigorated cinema in the UK | Stepehn Woolley | | by Stephen Woolley Jan 3, 2022 | | Hart gave me my first break in the industry and stood out as a beacon of hope for those who followed Romaine Hart gave me my start in the film business, hiring me as an usher at the Screen on the Green cinema in Islington, London, when I was 18; alongside the programmer Roger Austin she taught me fundamental lessons about cinema management that inspired me through the Other Cinema, Scala and later Palace years. As a teenager I had witnessed the transformation of my local, the Rex cinema on Upper Street, a downmarket fleapit that was part of a declining chain owned by the Bloom family (Romaine’s maiden name), to the Screen on the Green, with its progressive and clever programming. It showed critically acclaimed, mainly US second-run classics by day (the first double bill I attended as a 15-year-old was The Graduate and The Thomas Crown Affair). From 11.15pm the late-night cinema club showed cult films such as Performance, audacious double bills featuring Chabrol, Kurosawa and other greats of world cinema and obscure but daring fare like Henry Miller’s Quiet Days in Clichy. The Friday all-nighters of the Marx Brothers and Humphrey Bogart classics were usually packed to the rafters. Continue reading... | | | | | John Glacier: the Hackney rapper mingling catharsis and mystery | | by Christine Ochefu Jan 3, 2022 | | Made while living with a chronic disability, the producer-vocalist’s esoteric streams of consciousness mark her out as a major new voice John Glacier is someone who knows the importance of privacy. She says she’s “20,000 years old” when we meet over drinks in a London hotel; her Instagram bio reads “I have no name nor number”, and the icy-blokey name she performs under is intentionally deceptive. But in person she is open and friendly, with an unguarded demeanour. “I have no fucking life,” she jokes, deadpan. “I’m like: ‘Yay, something to do today!’” In July, she released Shiloh: Lost for Words, a widely lauded debut mixtape full of conversational, stream-of-consciousness raps over twitchy lo-fi beats. It’s deeply introspective, mixing in religious references and diary-like scenes from her life, with genius wordplay casually thrown in: “Can’t chat to me about grindin’ / Push more lines than Pusha T on a full eclipse, I’m all-nighting”, a beautifully unfolding nest of references to rap duo Clipse on Icing. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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