RIP Cinefex magazine

Sad indeed, that was an amazing magazine.

I remember fondly a bunch of issues with some of my favourite movies on the cover.

Jesus, this is sad to hear. I was a subscriber in the 90's. However, I more or less lost interest in special effects when CGI revolution started and took over the industry.

I wrote the STAR TREK TUC and MATRIX articles for them. I did about three dozen stories over ten years. It was weird, because I was totally into old-school analog but starting out my film journalism writing about stuff that was mostly digital. And even with all the people I talked with about VFX, especially when I was on-staff at the mag from 1998 to 2000, nobody could give a decent explanation for why everything was going CG, especially when motion-control miniature work had reached a zenith with all the great stuff coming out around 1997. I kept hearing how much stage time cost for shooting models, but these places already had the stages and the cameras!

My favorite issues were from very early on, like THE RIGHT STUFF and the STAR TREK TMP coverage (TMP is a long-term hobby of mine, I've interviewed nearly 30 people who worked on it) and BRAINSTORM and a feature on early DreamQuestImages work, along with ALTERED STATES.

CINEFANTASTIQUE was great, but it was really falling apart in the late 90s. I remember they had an article about PHANTOM MENACE on the cover and they got the TITLE wrong! I got a letter from Clarke asking if I wanted to write for them, but the rates were really bad, and he killed himself a little bit later on (I assume no relation between these events.)

I did a little sidebar about Ang's HULK VFX for the mag when it was revived in the 2000s, but the magic was clearly gone at that point (plus they were so screwed up on the payroll side that when I finally got my money, it was a personal check from the new editor, because I guess the magazine such as it was couldn't even honor its commitments.)