Miscellaneous: Newsstand News

The upcoming Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair includes a portfolio of contemporary stars photographed film noir-style by Annie Liebovitz. All the big names are there: Naomi Watts, Forest Whitaker, Bruce Willis, Kate Winslet. And those are just the W’s.

It’s on sale later this week, but right now you can check out a video feature based on these gorgeous photos called Killers Kill, Dead Men Die, which comes complete with sorta-cheesy hardboiled voiceover.

As Bill Crider notes, I mentioned the video yesterday on the noir fiction list Rara Avis but didn’t get around to posting it here. Sometimes being lazy pays off. Thanks to Bill’s post I can now also link to the B-roll, which offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the photo shoot. And there’s no voiceover.

Elsewhere, the New York Post reports that Premiere magazine may be shuttered. If it happens, it should be considered a mercy killing.

When Premiere, uh, premiered, it was the, um, premier film rag in the U.S. Intelligent coverage of a broad range of movies. Once a month I’d hike up to the video store, buy a copy, and spend the rest of the day devouring it. For years I held on to the collectible lobby cards that used to come in each issue.

But over time Premiere became smaller, both physically and in terms of scope. I still have a subscription, but only because the magazine is so cheap; the latest renewal come-on I received in the mail offers three years for a mere twenty-two bucks. I’d already decided not to renew it. I flip through each issue in about ten minutes, mainly to read critic Glenn Kenny, and then toss it into the recycling bin. The sad truth is Premiere hasn’t mattered in ages. I’m not even going to lament that there’s no serious mass-market print magazine about cinema in the U.S., because there’s no need for one. Not with such in-depth writing on movies available online, much of it recapped on a regular basis through GreenCine Daily.

Still, I miss those lobby cards.