geocities rescue

Periódicos De la Película

I don’t think I’ve ever found the perfect film magazine. None of the items on the rack seems to offer the correct balance of news, reviews, interviews and archive articles. So I seem to buy most of them in the end each month (and no that isn’t because I can’t read text which doesn’t include pictures).

Top of the list is 'Empire Magazine', mostly through loyalty (I’ve always bought it). In the beginning it was definitely a fans guide to cinema, but lately it’s become more corporate and so not as good as it used to be. 'Sight and Sound' is next for its independent coverage, and because sometimes it’s important to read articles written by people obviously passionate about film as an art form. 'Premiere Magazine' was always a special treat whenever I had a long train journey anywhere so that I could get previews of films that usually wouldn’t be out for years. Less essential now though, what with the ‘net, but it still has some good writing. If I’m really desperate, I’ll look at 'Total Film', which I suppose isn’t really fair given its coverage of low-budget film production. Much of time, The Guardian’s film writing can be of a very fine quality, although recent guff about films like Hannibal haven’t won it any favours.

But what of the rest? ‘Film Review’ is eminently ignorable with its simplistic ‘Big Breakfast’ style interviews which seem to reproduce press releases and its woolly film reviews which don’t seem to want to offend anyone who might otherwise grant them an interview. 'Flicks' has some good writing, but I’ve never seen the point of buying something I’d otherwise get free. 'Hotdog' thinks it’s the natural successor to 'Neon', but through some very tired writing and seem to be of the opinion that film history basically amounts to Guy Richie and Tarantino – look no further if you want to be less than thrilled.

[The older version of me notes -- I still read Empire and Sight & Sound and The Guardian. Old habits etc.]