Best Film Magazines
- Aunt Peg
- Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am
Re: Best Film Magazines
I've got stacks of old film magazines that have long since ceased publishing:
American Film, Cinefantastique (which was a great magazine in the 70s and 80s until it started to focus on TV too much, Films and Filming, Films Illustrated (I can still feel the gut punch I felt when it ceased publication in the very early 1980s).
I naturally have Film Comment from the late 1970s onward and Monthly Film Bulletin from the mid 70s until it merged with Sight and Sound.
A year or so ago I tried to get rid of my older Sight & Sound issues prior to the merger with Monthly Film Bulletin as well as the Australian magazine Cinema Papers which I had from the mid 1970s until it ceased publication around the turn of the century.
I placed an ad on a local website called Free Cycle basically offering to give them away to the first bidder but I had no takers so they all ended up in the recycling bin.
I do need to bite the bullet as to what I'm else I'm going to get rid of. I'd always envisaged that when I retired from work (which I was lucky enough to be able to at the age of 54) just over three years ago that I'd speed time looking through them but the trials of life have gotten in the way.
I have been and am in process of selling off most of my movie poster collection and have just started doing the same with my lobby cards (I have hundred of sets collected over about a 20 year period) though I'll hold on to my most treasured ones.
American Film, Cinefantastique (which was a great magazine in the 70s and 80s until it started to focus on TV too much, Films and Filming, Films Illustrated (I can still feel the gut punch I felt when it ceased publication in the very early 1980s).
I naturally have Film Comment from the late 1970s onward and Monthly Film Bulletin from the mid 70s until it merged with Sight and Sound.
A year or so ago I tried to get rid of my older Sight & Sound issues prior to the merger with Monthly Film Bulletin as well as the Australian magazine Cinema Papers which I had from the mid 1970s until it ceased publication around the turn of the century.
I placed an ad on a local website called Free Cycle basically offering to give them away to the first bidder but I had no takers so they all ended up in the recycling bin.
I do need to bite the bullet as to what I'm else I'm going to get rid of. I'd always envisaged that when I retired from work (which I was lucky enough to be able to at the age of 54) just over three years ago that I'd speed time looking through them but the trials of life have gotten in the way.
I have been and am in process of selling off most of my movie poster collection and have just started doing the same with my lobby cards (I have hundred of sets collected over about a 20 year period) though I'll hold on to my most treasured ones.
- GaryC
- Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm
- Location: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK
Re: Best Film Magazines
You should be able to find it in WH Smith's. I bought the new issue in my local branch this afternoon.bearcuborg wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:21 amLittle White Lies is a really fun magazine, but I’ve only seen it available in London.
- furbicide
- Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:52 am
Re: Best Film Magazines
That is a horrible story. What a shame nobody wanted them!Aunt Peg wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:02 amA year or so ago I tried to get rid of my older Sight & Sound issues prior to the merger with Monthly Film Bulletin as well as the Australian magazine Cinema Papers which I had from the mid 1970s until it ceased publication around the turn of the century.
I placed an ad on a local website called Free Cycle basically offering to give them away to the first bidder but I had no takers so they all ended up in the recycling bin.
For anyone who's interested, by the way, the entire archive of Cinema Papers (which is, indeed, a seminal film publication and a great resource for Australian cinema in particular) is available to read online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/cp/
- pianocrash
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 11:02 am
- Location: Over & Out
Re: Best Film Magazines
I suggest you snoop out any B&N brick & mortars in your USA area, if that's the case, as they seem to show up intermittently around my locale (but I'm technically between two states, so I have better snooping odds). Sometimes the praise in LWL can be fawning, which is why I kind of hate curated issues of anything, but there's still some wonderful interviews (Olivier Assayas a few issues back was pretty head-turning) and the UK-based coverage, which I always appreciate now that Sight & Sound isn't readily available around here anymore.bearcuborg wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:21 amLittle White Lies is a really fun magazine, but I’ve only seen it available in London. On trips to the Barnes and Noble it’s difficult to not want to pick up, or at least find a seat and browse through Film Comment, Cineaste, and Cinema Scope. Occasionally Film Maker does a really nice piece on the new faces of independent film.
I tend to hold on to my magazines too. I still have a nice collection of 90s era Spin and Sassy.
I still have a chunk of S&S on a bookshelf, along with many more years of The Wire, most of the full run of INDEX (bigtime R.I.P.), though I do miss my stack of Spins and, most especially, Sassy (for real)
Only semi-related: those old issues of Raygun are like $100 each now, which is incredible
- bearcuborg
- Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:30 am
- Location: Philadelphia via Chicago
Re: Best Film Magazines
I only have a few Raygun copies, but I had friends who studied graphic design who ate those 90s issues up.
One of the issues I have has Jarvis Cocker on the cover. He talks about wanting to score films, and even direct one day. Hopefully those things happen.
One of the issues I have has Jarvis Cocker on the cover. He talks about wanting to score films, and even direct one day. Hopefully those things happen.
- Orson Kane
- Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:07 pm
Re: Best Film Magazines
Has anyone read the online-only magazine Backstory (https://backstory.net/). It's got quite a few interviews that I like the look of.
Also if I wanted to subscribe to a magazine that has a more esoteric bent, would Cineaste be my best bet? Or Sight and Sound?
Also if I wanted to subscribe to a magazine that has a more esoteric bent, would Cineaste be my best bet? Or Sight and Sound?
- Andre Jurieu
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:38 pm
- Location: Back in Milan (Ind.)
Re: Best Film Magazines
I feel confident in stating that Cineaste is more esoteric than Sight & Sound.
- Godot
- Cri me a Tearion
- Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2004 12:13 am
- Location: Phoenix
Re: Best Film Magazines
Esoterica scale (among are the periodicals I've collected) ... following Andre's lead:
Screen > Cinemascope > Positif > CineAction > Movie > Cineaste > Sight & Sound > Film Comment > American Film > Empire > Entertainment Weekly
I browse in local Barnes and Noble, and frequently I find that I don't recognize the films or directors or writers in the table of contents. This is perhaps more a sign of my diminishing time devoted to watching the latest films. Notes betraying my increasingly pedestrian cinema tastes:
Screen > Cinemascope > Positif > CineAction > Movie > Cineaste > Sight & Sound > Film Comment > American Film > Empire > Entertainment Weekly
I browse in local Barnes and Noble, and frequently I find that I don't recognize the films or directors or writers in the table of contents. This is perhaps more a sign of my diminishing time devoted to watching the latest films. Notes betraying my increasingly pedestrian cinema tastes:
- Screen (way over my head ... though I'm likely not the intended audience)
- Cinemascope (I love Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Global DVD Discoveries" column, but rarely understand much else)
- Positif (I like the 50 Years of Selected Writings compendium, but beyond those I was mostly lost)
- CineAction (late, lamented, look for back issues on eBay, great stuff by Robin Wood)
- Movie (late, lamented, but see note below for it's online revival of sorts --- the best things to come from this periodical are the collections in Book of Film Noir, Book of the Western, etc.)
- Cineaste (I rarely buy now, but loved the '80s-'90s)
- Sight & Sound (loved the '70s-'90s ... again, great collections in books published by BFI)
- Film Comment (loved the '70s-'80s)
- American Film (great stuff in the '70s but an ugly death rattle)
- Empire (my boys love the snarkiness and fanboyish gushing, Kim Newman's column is often the highlight, and the podcast has humorous British cursing that all my kids love to imitate)
- Entertainment Weekly (pick up for $0.25 each issue at library for coming attractions news)
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Best Film Magazines
Esoteric is not, to my mind, the way to describe Screen; it’s a trade, and probably the one that has changed the least in the internet era. It truly is just for people in the business and not at all something a consumer should have interest in beyond its reviews, and it hasn’t made concessions to still get clicks or subscribers from a bigger audience as Variety and THR have. But esoteric to me implies a particular appreciation for the avant garde or outsider cinema or something when it’s just doing what trades should do in terms of being a publication consumed by the industry and not a general audience. Also Film Comment is, imo, marginally more esoteric than Sight & Sound (I cannot imagine the latter giving something as small as Vitalina Varela a cover story, for example) but that’s a little thing.
- Dr Amicus
- Joined: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:20 am
- Location: Guernsey
Re: Best Film Magazines
Are you confusing Screen International, the UK based trade magazine, and Screen, the academic (and then some) theoretical periodical? I haven't read Screen in years (not having access to a university library and I've never really been tempted to get a personal subscription) but there's a reason you don't find copies next to Empire or Sight & Sound in WH Smiths...
- Ribs
- Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm
Re: Best Film Magazines
I am, my mistake! Thought it seemed odd and that’s the explanation for why
- Oedipax
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:48 am
- Location: Atlanta
Re: Best Film Magazines
The editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinéma has resigned today, citing problems with the magazine's new owners (a collective of businessmen and producers).
- senseabove
- Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 am
Re: Best Film Magazines
UC Press has made all of their content free through June, including Film Quarterly.