Mark Cousins

The Most Chilling Detail in the U.S. Attack on an Iranian Naval Ship The Iranian warship was taking part in an international exercise with many other countries—including the United States.

newrepublic.com/post/207429/...

This month, in the wonderful little cinema in Cromarty:

Have spent so much time here over the years - Warrington Bank Quay

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

No country has welcomed me, moved me, excited me more than Iran.
How, therefore, to react to the bombing?
Joy that Khamenei is finally gone. But a Trump-Netanyahu co-authorship is a terrible story.
Sending love to Iranian friends.

To anyone who thinks Trump can bring peace and equality to Iran – I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Going cheap | Marina Hyde If POTUS can really bomb peace, stability and women’s rights into the Middle East, I’ll take my hat off to him. Judging by his role in Gaza, I won’t hold my breath, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thanks to Tom Hastings for sharing this great letter from John Steinbeck to Marilyn Monroe.

The National Year of Reading celebrates the ‘joy’ of books. But let’s not forget they can also be deeply troubling, too | Charlotte Higgins Encounters with great art can be absorbing, unsettling and even painful. How has this been tamed into ‘reading for pleasure’, asks Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer

Totally agree
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Donald Trump doesn't understand Iran or care about its people.

Netanyahu Calls Iran Strikes Necessary To Prevent War He Just Started

Netanyahu Calls Iran Strikes Necessary To Prevent War He Just Started

Carb loading for Bela Tarr's Satantango @filmhouseedinburgh.bsky.social today.

I'd love to be friends with Ryan Coogler

Baz Luhrmann's EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert in IMAX (front row) is a quasi religious experience.

Why was Bela Tarr not in the In Memoriam sequence in the Baftas tonight?

Bliss

China? No Tillycoultry near Stirling.
As the rain gets stronger, rocks are falling.
No birds.
I expect to see the Tardis

What a complex film. Leone at times, the Godfather at times, Coutinho at times, but so its own wide-screen, super saturated, slow burn delight.
The Secret Agent.

If you know my work, you'll know that looking/visual thinking is central to it.
So of course I loved the new French-Japanese film Little Amelie, about a 2-3 year old beginning to understand life through looking.
Really innovative.

This book is so good.

Thought + felt a LOT through highs and lows of Emerald Fennell's #WutheringHeights
Reminded me of Orson Welles' great, derided film Macbeth - his sketches for it below.
Echoes too of Jacques Demy films.
It's thin at times, but thinking visually rather than in terms of literature or psychology.

My last hours at the Berlin film fest.
Thank you to everyone

Many thanks. Yes happy to do that

Berlin world premiere of The Story of Documentary Film today.

My occasional reminder that assuming someone's ignorance is not a great look.
Instead of saying "You might enjoy" or "Check this out", it's better to say "If you haven't..."
Lost count of the times that people suggest I watch something that I saw decades ago + spent ages trying to get recognised.

In fact, if anyone wants to commission me to make a film about the shock of the Melania doc, I'm here.

In the past I've intercut films, or radically altered their sountrack.
I'd like to show Melania with sound track of Pasolini's Salo, or intercut with:
Murnau's NOSFERATU (same coat) or
Marleen Gorris' A QUESTION OF SILENCE
Klimov's COME AND SEE (the talk of children) or
Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS

I didn't

Is there proof that people and equipment were involved in the Melania film?
Felt totally AI generated to me: the people, places, music, imagery and especially the script.