Little White Lies double bill
The latest Little White Lies is a special split issue, with two front covers inspired by two new movies – The Raid and The Innkeepers. It’s presented as a tribute to the midnight movie double bills of grindhouse cinema, and both films sit comfortably in the tradition of movie shock and gore.
By sacrificing a back page advert they’ve created two magazines in one, with two front covers, two sets of features and two reviews sections that meet in the middle. The concept gives plenty of space for playing with ideas of doubling and inversion, and as you’d expect from White Lies it’s quite beautifully done; soft drink cans appear as recurring images on both sides of the magazine (they presumably crop up in both films) and the phrase “You’re not here to do good” is pulled out to refer to both movies.
But even more striking than the design is the issue’s display of virtuoso review writing by editor Matt Bochenski and reviews editor David Jenkins. They take a film each and launch into their reviews with the sort of eloquent, impassioned gusto that you just don’t seem to see in other film writing.
In his praise of The Raid, Bochenski concedes that, “It may not be one for film Cathoics, for those who see cinema as a silent communion with the gods. But for anyone who yearns for the participatory thrill of the movies, Evans has created an unmissable event…”
Meanwhile, in concluding his review of The Innkeepers, Jenkins classifies director Ti West’s films as, “assiduously sculpted monoliths that remind us of a time when horror cinema was more than just colliding tsunamis of screaming, pus and tits.”
They’re well-written reviews, but they’re more than that – they’re evidence of a film magazine that has something urgent to say about the state of cinema. At the time of writing the team are over in Cannes hobnobbing, drinking and watching the occasional film, and you can see what they make of it all by following their live blog.
