Observer Film Magazine. August 07.

You might find this a bit more interesting: "After Hollywood and Bollywood, Nollywood is the world's third-biggest film-producing industry," writes novelist Biyi Bandele. "It has achieved this impressive feat without subsidy or investment and - fortunately perhaps - without attracting the faintest glimmer of interest from the Nigerian government or any NGO. It has a long way to go to achieve its dream of catching up with Mumbai or Los Angeles, but it is perfectly capable of doing so. The will is there. And at the rate it's going, soon, so will be the means."

Another highlight: "With the blockbuster season behind us, we pick the top 20 from autumn's more quirky and thoughtful delights." And another list: Philip French outlines "five categories of vacation movies" to introduce his annotated top ten.

"The Bourne movies are perfect thrillers for our slippery, uncertain times: globe-spanning, technocratic, cool-temperature epics of high-speed information and fractured identity," writes Sight & Sound editor Nick James. "They enjoy the frisson of Cold War nostalgia, yet they also revel in the moral chaos of the now, as much as in their signature car chases. They are the perfect revision of James Bond as if by John le Carré. And conversely, they are also the most obvious influence on Daniel Craig's new James Bond in Casino Royale, a less far-fetched creation than of old. But there's one particular aspect of the Bourne movies that tells us more about ourselves, and about the way Hollywood sees the world now, than anything else, and that is their idea of the enemy." Related: Dan Bradley on coordinating the stunts for The Bourne Ultimatum.

A section on "Film history":

• "Despite the esteem in which Raging Bull is now held, its initial release was hardly a cause for widespread celebration." Ryan Gilbey revisits the film's rocky history. Then, blogging, Gilbey asks, "What's the best film of the 70s, Hollywood's last golden era?"

• Killian Fox outlines the disparate influences on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Reservoir Dogs, a href="http://www.greencine.com/webCatalog?id=188243">Star Wars and Blue Velvet.

• Martin Amis profiled Steven Spielberg back in 1982: "Towards the end of ET, barely able to support my own grief and bewilderment, I turned and looked down the aisle at my fellow sufferers: executive, black dude, Japanese businessman, punk, hippie, mother, teenager, child. Each face was a mask of tears. Staggering out, through a tundra of sodden hankies, I felt drained, pooped, squeezed dry; I felt as though I had lived out a year-long love affair - complete with desire and despair, passion and prostration - in the space of 120 minutes."

• In another look back to the early 80s, Jason Solomons talks with Chariots of Fire producer David Puttnam: "I suppose things were looking good for the British industry, and it was probably silly to think that but it did give us all a morale boost. Not for long, sad to say."

"[E]ffects have dominated cinema since the blockbuster era began with Star Wars. What we're witnessing now, however, is a peak of beauty in their design - you simply can't see the join between reality and fantasy," writes Jason Solomons. "[W]hat we're experiencing now is the happy coexistence of art and science, of sensitive director and remarkable programmer. But soon this equilibrium will tip in favour of the machine. Already, Hollywood spends a fortune on an effects budget - as much as it does on marketing and more than it does on hiring stars. Bottom of the pile these days are, of course, the writers and script developers. And it shows." Also, "Did I just see you in the video for Jamie T's new single?" he asks Bob Hoskins. And: a very, very brief chat with Joe Wright about Atonement.

Charles Gant on Knocked Up: "Hollywood studios will be heartened that this summer American audiences showed an appetite for fresh and original; nobody is in a hurry to find out whether that hunger can also encompass radical."

In an extract from Helen de Winter's book, What I Really Want To Do Is Produce, a dozen or so producers take on the question, "So you're a producer... what exactly do you do?"

Emily Maitlis tells Liam O'Driscoll about the films in her life.

Posted by dwhudson at August 5, 2007 4:31 PM