Here’s exciting pulp fiction, shot on the familiar Kong Island set, with the same King Kong director, Ernest Schoedsack, and some of the same stars. Robert Armstrong, Fay Wray and Joel McCrae are  pursued through the jungle by Leslie Banks. A cabin cruiser is shipwrecked off the coast of a remote island and the three passengers survive. The island is owned by Mad Count Zaroff, who invites them to stay. But he’s a psycho sadist who enjoys hunting, and he only hunts The Most Dangerous Game -- Man!
 
Leslie Banks hams it up in a very archaic  stage-actor's style, the sort of mugging that was later adopted by Vincent Price in his villainous roles. A very early sound movie, where the actors must stay close to the hidden mics and shout. But action scenes, lacking dialog, are nice and fluid, like the best of late silent cinema. Here is the transition from silent to sound usage. The pre-code Freudian subtext is nice, too, as Zaroff shows the link between passion and murder. Based on Richard Connell’s classic short story.
 

This installment features:

1. THUNDERBIRDS REMIX by Power Themes 90
2. 2 FRAMES by Paul Grant
3. DWARFSTAR by Mike Kuchar
4. BULB IN THE HEAD by Melika Bass
5. STICKERS by Daniel Maldonado
6. LEN by Joey Huertas
7. WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK by Ryan Claypool and Austin Smythe
8. SILO by Joel Schlemowitz
9. MEANTIME by Deborah Magocsi

Mark Kermode Sunday June 25, 2006 The Observer An unfortunate side-effect of Ken Loach's reputation as a polemicist is the fact that his films are judged primarily as political tracts rather than as works of art. Allow me to start, therefore, by stating that The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a tale of brother-against-brother rebellion in 1920s Ireland, is beautifully shot by Loach's longtime cinematographer Barry Ackroyd. The green fields, earth-brown interiors and darkening grey skies provide a striking counterpoint to the black and blue horrors of the war-torn narrative. Favouring natural light, and drawing our eye constantly toward the environment from which this tortured conflict is drawn, the visual imagery reminds us that, like Loach's terrific investigation of the Spanish Civil War, this is a tale of both land and freedom. To the subject, then, which, according to Loach, should always dictate the style. On one level, The Wind That Shakes the Barley presents the flipside of Neil Jordan's more mainstream Michael Collins, viewing the creation of the Irish Free State through the eyes of an idealist socialist rather than a mystical romanticist. While Jordan gave centre stage to the 'big men' (Collins, de Valera), Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty effectively turn their attention toward the support ing players, in particular two republican brothers who experience first hand the divide-and-conquer power of imperialist rule. The mercurial Cillian Murphy is blue-eyed young doctor Damien, who trades gurneys for guns after his kith are assaulted by the Black and Tans. Padraic Delaney is his brother, Teddy, the diehard freedom fighter who faces tacit submission to the Empire as a soldier for the shackled Free State. Despite newspaper claims that The Wind That Shakes the Barley demonises Brits while caricaturing Celts as caring comrades, the conflict the film portrays is ugly, brutal and, crucially, internecine. Many of the British soldiers in Ireland were hardened veterans of the Great War, and Loach's early depiction of their untrammelled violence evokes more a sense of desperation than sadism. A nail-pulling (and wince-inducing) scene of British torture may establish a partisan moral division, but the ambushing of British soldiers by republicans also leaves a sickening, inglorious aftermath from which the rebels are forced to turn their faces away. Most pointedly, the cold-blooded executions punctuating the drama are carried out by the brothers themselves, each one dwelling upon the brutalising tragedy of a conflict that turns heroes into killers, oppressors into victims. It's clear where Loach and Laverty point the political finger of blame, their focus being the abandonment of a socialist ideal in favour of a colonialist compromise that carries the seeds of its own destruction. There are parallels to be made with the British and American presence in the Middle East, suggesting that the illusion of 'freedom' which attends the Black and Tans' departure from Ireland has prophetic significance for the future independence of Iraq. Ironically, the most pointed line of dialogue in the movie is delivered by a belligerent British aristocrat who taunts Damien that the success of his cause will turn his country into a 'priest-infested backwater'. Sir John Hamilton (Roger Allam) is referring to the principle of Irish rule in any form. But in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed in 1921, which Damien insists will change only 'the accents of the powerful', the Ireland of The Wind That Shakes the Barley shows every sign of fulfilling his arrogant prophecy. If there is a fault in Loach's film, it lies in the disjunct between the ultra-naturalist style, which allows characters to engage in authentically ragged political rows, and the schematic melodrama of the narrative which too neatly confronts both Damien and Teddy with mirroring moral dilemmas. The dialogue may be vintage Loach, and the politics earnest James Connolly, but the feuding family storyline veers occasionally toward Willy Russell. Perhaps this is why the film packs such an uncertain emotional punch. The historical perspective may be robust, but its authentic messy complexities cast a shadow of contrivance over the highly orchestrated ructions between these blood brothers. Judged within the canon of Loach's work, The Wind That Shakes the Barley may lack the invigorating involvement of Land and Freedom (my favourite Loach film), but it is infinitely superior to the tiresome Hidden Agenda , which incurred a similar barracking. Like the folk song from which it draws its title (and which laments 'the foreign chains that bind us'), the tone is more melancholic than defiant, with a twang of bitterness underlying its themes of discord and discontent. One can and, indeed, should argue about the politics, but only the most petty-minded could claim that Loach doesn't deserve his overdue Palme d'Or victory. For all its alleged anti-Britishness, The Wind That Shakes the Barley stands as a testament to a home-grown tradition of thought-provoking cinema, with an international audience, of which we should all be proud.

The Apartment
Billy Wilder 1960
USA 125 minutes

Made the year after Some Like it Hot, The Apartment again sees Billy Wilder teaming up with Jack Lemmon, this time for a truly bitter-sweet film which glides smoothly from comedy to pathos. Lemmon is an insurance clerk who, in the hope of promotion, lends out his apartment to senior executives lookmg for somewhere to take their girlfriends - the trouble starts when the girl whom Lemmon has fallen for (Shirley MacLaine), is taken there by his boss. A razor-sharp satire on the morals and ethics of the Real World, The Apartment is a superb film and Lemmon and MacLaine both act extremely well.

OR

De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté
"The Beat My Heart Skip"
Jacques Audiartd 2005
France 107 minutes

American pulp novels by the likes of Jim Thompson, David Goodis and Cornell Woolrich have frequently been adapted by French filmmakers. But French remakes of Hollywood films are rare enough to border on the unique. Such a film is The Beat That My Heart Skipped (aka De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrete), Jacques Audiard's excellent version of Fingers, James Toback's 1978 debut as writer-director. A young man struggles to free himself from his father's criminal world, and pursue his dream of becoming a concert pianist.

Seven independent literary publishers of emerging prominence have united to host Steal This Reading, a night of readings by 15 poets spanning immanent figures of innovative poetry such as MacArthur Fellowship winner C.D. Wright (Copper Canyon) and Eleni Sikelianos (Coffee House) to new stars such as Graham Foust (Flood) and Joyelle McSweeney (Fence).

Coinciding with the annual Associated Writing Programs conference, held this year in midtown Manhattan, this off-site and unaffiliated event draws national attention Brooklyn as a central hub for various thriving communities of poets and independent publishers across the country. East Coast Aliens provides an intimate & artistic atmosphere on the edge of Greenpoint’s developing waterfront, a stark contrast to the groomed Midtown hotel conference confines.

The night’s hosts represent the thrilling future of poetry and include print publishers (Black Ocean, Free Verse Editions & Tarpaulin Sky Press), online magazines (Typo & Octopus) & grassroots presses (Kitchen Press & Cannibal Books).  While all of the host organizations have been founded in the last eight years, each has secured a reputation among the best publishers defining and expanding the forefront of new poetry.

Event coordinator Matthew Henriksen (Typo, Cannibal Books) is also curator of the NYC & Brooklyn-based Burning Chair Readings, a series that has hosted over 150 poets in three years. A mission of the Burning Chair Readings is to seek out a broader audience beyond the often closed corridors of poetry, whether academic or avant garde, to promote emerging poetry teeming with exhilaration and vitality. The poets represented at Steal This Reading will offer performances of serious poetry that poets and non-poets alike will enjoy.

To learn more about the publishers visit these websites:

Black Ocean:                blackocean.org
Cannibal Books:         flesheatingpoems.blogspot.com
Free Verse Editions:   parlorpress.com/freeverse
Kitchen Press:             kitchen-press-book-store.blogspot.com
Octopus:                       octopusmagazine.com
Tarpaulin Sky Press: tarpaulinsky.com/Press/index.html
Typo:                             typomag.com


Author Bios (in alphabetical order):

Lily Brown is from the east coast but currently lives on the west coast.  She is the author of the chapbook, The Renaissance Sheet, published by Octopus Books in 2007.  Her second chapbook, Old with You, is forthcoming from Kitchen Press.  Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Typo, Octopus, Fence, Tarpaulin Sky, Cannibal, Handsome and 26.

Julie Doxsee was born in London, Ontario. Her poems have appeared in over thirty-five national and international journals, including Aufgabe, Fourteen Hills, and Tarpaulin Sky. Forthcoming publications include two books: Objects for a Fog Death (Black Ocean, 2008/2009) and Undersleep (Octopus Books 2008), and two chapbooks: You Will Build a City Out of Rags (Whole Coconut 2007) and New Body a Seafloor Body (Seeing Eye Books 2008). The Knife-Grasses (Octopus Books), and Fog Quartets (horse less press) are now available.  She is full-time faculty at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Graham Foust lives in Oakland, California with his wife Amy and his son Merle.  He teaches writing and literature at Saint Mary's College of California, and his most recent book is Necessary Stranger (Flood Editions, 2007).

Rauan Klassnik was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. In his early teens he moved to Dallas, Texas with his family. Much of his time is now spent in Mexico. His poems have appeared in Caesura, Hunger Mountain, Pilot Poetry, No Tell Motel, The Kennesaw Review, Front Porch, The Mississippi Review, The North American Review, MiPoesias, Handsome, and many other journals. His chapbook, "Stitches" was published by Firewheel Editions in 2002 and his first full-length collection, Holy Land, will be released by Black Ocean in the spring of 2008.

Melanie Hubbard lives in Ruskin, FL, with her family.  Recently the recipient of an NEH fellowship, she has spent the past year completing a scholarly book on Emily Dickinson's poems in relation to developments in philosophy and linguistic theory, the invention of photography and the discovery of electricity, and changes in rhetoric, editorial theory, and popular manuscript activity. She also writes personal essays, commentaries, book reviews, and features for the St. Petersburg Times. Poems can be found in Typo, Swink, Fence, Cab/Net, horse less review, and Cannibal.

Joyelle McSweeney is the author of Nylund, The Sarcographer (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2007). She is also the author of three titles from Fence Books: Flet, The Red Bird, and The Commandrine and Other Poems. She is a co-founder and co-editor of Action Books and Action, Yes, a press and web quarterly for international writing and hybrid forms. She writes regular reviews for Rain Taxi, The Constant Critic, and other venues and teaches in the MFA Program at Notre Dame.

Cindy Savett teaches poetry workshops at psychiatric institutions in the Philadelphia area to both acute short-term and residential patients.  Her first book, Child in the Road, has recently been released.  In addition, she is published in numerous print and on-line journals, including Margie, Heliotrope, LIT, The Marlboro Review, 26 Magazine, Cutbank, and Free Verse.  She is also at work on a memoir on the death of her daughter.  Cindy has served on several school Boards and other non-profit agencies, and spent fifteen years in the retail business, traveling extensively overseas.  Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, she currently lives in Merion, Pennsylvania with her husband and children.  

Eleni Sikelianos is the author of six books, including The California Poem and The Book of Jon. Du Soleil, de l’histoire, de la vision, a selected poems translated into French appeared this fall.  Forthcoming are Body Clock and her translation of Jacques Roubaud’s Exchanges de la lumière.

Zachary Schomburg was born in Omaha, Nebraska, spent his childhood in Iowa, and received his BA from College of the Ozarks. Currently, he's pursuing a doctorate in creative writing from the University of Nebraska. Schomburg edits Octopus Magazine and Octopus Books, and co-curates the Clean Part Reading Series in Lincoln, NE. His poems have appeared in the Canary, CutBank, Diagram, Ducky, Fence, Forklift, Ohio, Good Foot, the Hat, La Petite Zine, Lamination Colony, LIT, Mid-American Review, Mipoesias, No Tell Motel, Northwest Review, Parakeet, Pettycoat Relaxer, Spork, Swink, Tarpaulin Sky, Unpleasant Event Schedule, and Washington Square Review. His debut collection, The Man Suit, was published Black Ocean in 2007.

Morgan Lucas Schuldt is the author of Verge (Free Verse Editions, 2007) and Otherhow (Kitchen Press, 2007), a chapbook.  He lives in Tucson where he edits the literary journal CUE and the chapbook series CUE Editions.

Jon Thompson teaches at North Carolina State University where he edits Free Verse: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry & Poetics and the new poetry series, Free Verse Editions. His first collection was The Book of the Floating World, which was reissued in a new expanded edition in 2007. His current poetry manuscript is titled Strange Country.

Joshua Marie Wilkinson is the co-author, with Noah Eli Gordon, of Figures for a Darkroom Voice (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2007).  He is also the author of Suspension of a Secret in Abandoned Rooms (Pinball, 2005), Lug Your Careless Body out of the Careful Dusk (U of Iowa, 2006), and The Book of Whispering in the Projection Booth (forthcoming from Tupelo Press).  He holds a PhD from University of Denver and lives in Chicago where he teaches at Loyola University.  His first film, Made a Machine by Describing the Landscape, is due out in 2008.

Max Winter is the author of The Pictures (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2007).  He is also the winner of the Fifth Annual Boston Review Poetry Contest, and has published poems in Free Verse, New American Writing, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, Colorado Review, The Canary, Denver Quarterly, and Typo. He has published reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, and BOMB, and is a Poetry Editor of Fence.

C.D. Wright was born and raised in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. She is the author of a dozen books. Her most recent titles are One Big Self: An Investigation (Copper Canyon, 2007), Like Something Flying Backwards, New and Selected (Bloodaxe Editions, 2007), Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil (Copper Canyon, 2005). Rising, Falling, Hovering will be out in 2008, also from Copper Canyon Press. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, and awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Lannan Foundation. Steal Away: Selected and New Poems was a finalist for the 2003 Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2004 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. In 2005 she was given the Robert Creeley Award and elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wright is the Israel J. Kapstein Professor of English at Brown University. She lives outside of Providence with her husband, poet Forrest Gander.