Hello!

Over at his page “Q Branch Mirror” fellow reviewer and fantasy film enthusiast Kyu Hyun Kim has shown elevated levels of interest in William Friedkin lately, and offered me a couple of links that I found to be good reading. In the first, he reviews the 1977 Sorcerer and in the second he interviews Professor Steve Choe of San Francisco State University, who has been conducting intense interviews with the director.

I think I’m going to get to review the new Joseph McBride book on Ernst Lubitsch, How Did Lubitsch Do It? The title would seem to be derived from the quote ‘How would Lubitsch do it?” which will be familiar to anybody who ever read anything about Lubitsch’s biggest fan, Billy Wilder. I’m awaiting my copy in the mail. It’ll be good timing because I’ve just finished Case History of a Movie, Dore Schary’s old book about the filming of the 1950 The Next Voice You Hear.

And I’m thinking of reviewing a picture that’s been out for a couple of years on Blu-ray, Code 46 from Olive Films. I started to watch it back then but gave up out of frustration — I wasn’t understanding enough of the dialogue, and there were no subtitles. But I watched it last week with the aid of a continuity script, and found it an interesting future-world romance along the lines of Gattaca and THX 1138. Would anyone sit still for a review of a Michael Winterbottom science fiction drama from 2003?

We have confirmation from Universal about the Creature Legacy Collection coming up in August. Gary Teetzel sends along this package mock-up that definitely says that the original film and Revenge of the Creature will both be in 3-D. And pessimist me actually doubted the word of the 3-D Film Archive, so must do penance. There are so few things in today’s world to really worry about, so we need to pick and choose.

And Gary Teetzel forwards an amusing Youtube ‘Look Mum No Computer’ video in which an engagingly demented fellow with a Brit accent named Sam explains how to turn a toy light saber into a musical instrument — LightSaber Theremin: Star Wars Musical Machine. This definitely reminds me of Mick Jagger back in Performance, playing with a neon light. The old technology just let Mick down.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson