March Sight & Sound: Anton Yelchin

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The day after Prince died, I happened to catch a moving screening of Jeremy Saulnier’s punk-band horror thriller Green Room (2015) in the ArcLight cinema in Hollywood. If you’ve not seen it, one of the film’s threads is that perennial test of musical fandom – which one musician or musical group would you keep with you on a desert island? To begin, the film’s various hardcore punkers pick their expected choices – Poison Idea, The Misfits – though the film’s star, a superb Anton Yelchin, is more contemplative. When they’re later trapped in the titular green room by sundry Nazi skinheads and a dog of death, the question is again put to them under duress, which brings out the unvarnished truth. “Simon & Garfunkel!” one blurts out. And the badass of the band (Joe Cole), the guy who in another movie would lead the group to victory, spills his heart: “Prince!” 

The March issue of Sight & Sound is out — my piece on the late, great, gone-too-soon Anton Yelchin with a lovely contribution from Joe Dante. Pick it up or read here.

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