New Esquire (UK) magazine now on sale. Includes good writing.

The August issue of Esquire is now out on the stands, and I am privileged and enthused to say that it includes my first contribution as the magazine's new regular monthly film columnist. The piece in question is a joint review of two newly released documentaries taking as their subject the Coalition invasion and occupation of Iraq - these being Heavy Metal in Baghdad and Standard Operating Procedure. Among the cultural references dropped clunkily therein are the luminous names of Keith Moon, Pablo Neruda, and Seymour Hersh. And midway I make gratuitous reference to my IFC/Channel 4 documentary (I say 'my' because I wrote and presented, but actually Saul Metzstein directed, and very well) The Name of This Film is Dogme 95. (Online I can't see any of the fine reviews this doc received after its UK broadcast premiere, but here's a nice notice from Chicago's Ray Pride.)

Back to the August Esquire: which of the two Iraq pictures under review did I prefer? Guess... Either way - and, frankly, regardless - it will be worth your while picking up Esquire this month.

Alex Cox @ The Barbican, Friday July 4

Alex Cox's work is screening in a partial but essential retrospective at the Barbican this month, to tie in with the publication of his excellent new book X Films from I.B. Tauris, and I will be chairing a Barbican Q&A session with Senor Cox this coming Friday night July 4, 8.30pm. Do get along if you can.
Some of the flavour of the book can be gleaned from Cox's provocative blog: it's not a memoir so much as a highly detailed, hugely compelling tour through the making of each of the items in his body of work - beginning with his graduation project at UCLA, through Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, Walker et al, up to the current Searchers 2.0. As such it is a workbook for any would-be cineaste of the independent stripe, and a vital contribution to film history, insofar as it records with honesty and exactitude what were the creative decisions behind some bold and unclassifiable films made by a huge talent.
I'm really looking forward to this event, and hope there'll be a lively cinephile crowd, as befits the man and the occasion. If I can dig them out of whatever box they're currently in I will take along my shabby shop-bought VHS of Repo Man and my cassette (cassette!) of the movie's awesome soundtrack, as talismans, if you will. You will recall that repo men, unlike the rest of us in general, spend their lives getting into tense situations (esp. while getting cars out of "bad areas") and we should all try to do likewise now and then...