LWLies 106: The Nickel Boys issue

 

On the cover:

 

We were so proud to commission one of our long-term collaborators, Rumbidzai Savanhu aka marykeepsgoing, to create a special cover for us this issue. Our covers tend to feature portraits of protagonists within the film, and she has created a playful interpretation of this concept whereby we see the back of Elwood’s head, watching his life play-out on TV screens in a shop window – a reference to one of the film’s most affecting shots.

 

Also in the issue we have incredible new illustrated work from Ngadi Smart, Tomekah George, Joanna Blémont, Xia Gordon, Krystal Quiles and Stéphanie Sergeant.

 

 

In the issue:

 

Lead review: Nickel Boys

Sam Bodrojan lauds a harrowing modern masterpiece for its boldness, humanity and formal poetics.

 

The Interior Self

Leila Latif discovers how filmmaker RaMell Ross made a Pulitzer Prize- winning novel his own.

 

The Invisible Man

Actor Ethan Herisse on the challenges of sculpting a performance and building a character from behind the camera.

 

Hard Labour

Leila Latif gets personal with the formidable actor and by-proxy activist, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.

 

Ways of Seeing

Jourdain Searles discovers how cinematographer Jomo Fray refreshed traditional concepts of the camera eye.

 

Sacred Images

Sophie Monks Kaufman writes in praise of cinema that channels human brutality while rejecting its lurid visual nature.

 

Community Matters

Rōgan Graham celebrates the world of grassroots advocacy organisations built to promote diversity in cinema.

 

I See A Darkness

Cheyenne Bart-Stewart speaks to writer/ director Rungano Nyoni about her new film, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.

 

 

In the back section:

 

Magic and Loss: the making of Queer

Hannah Strong chats to Luca Guadagnino, Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey on how they tangled with the cryptic poetry of William Burroughs in this flighty and emotional new screen adaptation.

 

Jesse Eisenberg

Darren Richman shares stories of ancestral journeys to Eastern Europe with the writer/director/star of A Real Pain.

 

Brady Corbet

Keeping it real to the very last second was the main gambit of co-writer/director of The Brutalist, discovered Hannah Strong.

 

Halina Reijn

Rafa Sales Ross discovers that female desire can be both funny and sexy on screen in her conversation with the writer/director of Babygirl.

 

Pablo Larraín

The Chilean director lays out his opera credentials to Hannah Strong in this dialogue on his new film Maria, about Maria Callas.

 

 

In review:

 

Luca Guadagnino’s Queer

Ruth Beckermann’s Favoriten

Steven Soucey’s Merchant Ivory

Justin Kurzel’s The Order

Michael Gracey’s Better Man

John Crowley’s We Live In Time

Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain

Pinny Grylls and Sam Crain’s Grand Theft Hamlet

Viktor Kossakovsky’s Architecton

Magnus von Horn’s The Girl with the Needle

Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio

Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist

Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths

Naoko Yamada’s The Colours Within

Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch

Halina Reijn’s Nightbitch

James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown

Pablo Larrain’s Maria

 

 

Plus – the LWLies top ten films of 2024!

Matt Turner and David Jenkins explore eight recent Home Ents gems, plus we have a postcard from the Tokyo International Film Festival via Hannah Strong, and Marina Ashioti writes in praise of Chantal Ackerman’s Je Tu Il Elle ahead of a major BFI retrospective.

 

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Little White Lies launched in 2005 with the sole aim of creating a magazine that captures the excitement of talking about movies with good friends by bringing together impassioned, intelligent writing with striking illustration. Each issue of the magazine dedicates its entire front section to an upcoming theatrical release, drawing inspiration from the themes and visual tone of the carefully selected film. The back section features essential reviews of the latest movie releases, plus exclusive interviews, festival reports and more