Flatpack Festival
Film for all the senses

August flavours

Ian Francis
Thursday 20th August, 2009 Posted by Ian Francis

As we pack our bags for Green Man, here are my top 5 things for the month....

1) Moon (dir: Duncan Jones) Saw it last night and was well impressed. Saturated in 70s sci-fi influences, but still its own film. Brummie-spotters should listen out for a nifty Clint Mansell score and adman Trevor Beattie also put some money in.

2) The Shape of Things to Come by Greil Marcus Being a big fan of Lipstick Traces (which gets a 20th anniversary reissue this year) it was exciting to stumble on this in the library. Marcus can be quite dense and tangential but it's worth hanging on for the ride with this one, a rollercoaster thesis on American prophets which goes from Lincoln and MLK to Laura Palmer and riot grrrl, finishing off with David Thomas of Pere Ubu. (Thomas is popping up in the lit tent at Green Man.)

3) It Felt Like a Kiss (dir: Adam Curtis) Curtis has kindly posted the entire one-hour film from his recent Punchdrunk collaboration in Manchester. They're touring it next year and it may not be online for long. Bit of a rehash of some of his other work, but some marvellous tunes and editing.

4) Ambivalence Avenue by Bibio We already plugged this, but that was before we listened to it properly. It's bloody gorgeous, a perfect summer album. Go get it!

5) We Love You So If you're going to plug a movie, why not add something to the world in the process? The trailers for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are have been getting grown men all squishy, and the WLYS blog has updates on the film, Sendak online and also a plethora of vaguely related tipoffs on design, film, childrens lit and all sorts. Thanks to them we looked up the work of John and Faith Hubley, Google's archive of Village Voice back-issues, and this smart video for Sour:

The trailer for Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox, on the other hand, does not look so hot.

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