Shorts, 5/19.

The Guardian and Observer combined must have half a dozen journos at least spread out up and down the Croisette and into every other nook and cranny in Cannes where the restored version of Jean Renoir's La Marseillaise will be shown today. The best bet at this point is simply to direct you to the papers' full coverage page and let you do your picking and choosing from there. And don't forget indieWIRE's and certainly not the official site, either, featuring a generous dollop of video this year. In general, the festival seems to have finally clued into the value of a hopping site. Plus, you gotta love those daily cinema quotes hand-picked by Jenny Holzer.

Meanwhile, a couple of those Guardian/Observer gents turn up in Outlook India as Saibal Chatterjee wonders, "Where, pray, is Bollywood?" In Cannes, that is. Derek Malcolm: "India does not know how to promote its films." Andrew Pulver: "Mainstream Indian cinema has gone from being a completely obscure form to an attractive mainstream idea in next to no time. It has leapfrogged from nowhere to Andrew Lloyd Webber. That has been its undoing." Maybe, though, the rising star power of Aishwarya Rai can help put it back together again. Also: One of the most anticipated DVD releases at GreenCine has been Roland Joffé's The Mission. Harsh Kabra reports on the controversy Joffe's been stirring up with his next film, The Invaders, "a period tale of a battle between the British and Marathas starring Vivek Oberoi."

In the New Yorker, Tad Friend previews Action!, the novel coming out next month written by producer Robert Cort (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Mr. Holland's Opus). Heavens: Was Romy Schneider really into spanking?

Speaking of the New Yorker, having lambasted the nation's most respected newspaper for an asterisk, David Poland tears into the nation's most respected magazine. "Why is this particular review so offensive to me?" he asks out loud and then proceeds, point by point, to explain why Adam Gopnik not only doesn't "get" The Matrix but how his review, bloated with "pretense and nonsense," has become "the primary text pointed to when people want to jump on the anti-Reloaded bandwagon."

Peter Greenaway's Tulse Luper extravaganza launches Saturday. Matthew Mirapaul has a preview in the New York Times. Here's ours. Also in the NYT: Dave Kehr on Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer.

Back to the Observer for a moment. A flock of 60s and 70s era rock biopics are coming up and Boyd Farrow wonders why. In part, it's demographics, evidently, but producer Nik Powell (The Crying Game, Absolute Beginners) has a pretty good point as well: "It's all about DVD... DVD is made for music and music fans are collectors by nature. Even if the films don't do that well at the cinema they know there are enough fans to want to buy the DVDs for the sound or the extras or whatever." Another reminder of the waning importance of the theatrical release.

In Flak: "The X2 Guide to US Foreign Policy."

"In a city where the movie reviewers are mostly liberals in rusty Hondas, [Michael] Medved is a conservative with a house on Mercer Island and a vaster audience than any local critic could dream of." Which makes him a prime candidate for a profile, conveniently provided by Tim Appelo in the Seattle Weekly.

The Tick, "the ultimate cult series," is headed for DVD. Also via ICv2: "New Line Cinema has optioned the popular Y: The Last Man comic series from Vertigo."

Natsume Maya has some intriguing figures on the economic status in Japan of those who make anime and manga. Going by the taxes they pay, they don't figure in the top 100 of all Japanese, but in the "others" category (i.e., those not making cars or toppling banks), they score right on up there. Also: An interesting pointer to a piece on the "painterly" computer graphics of the French animation feature, Kaena: The Prophecy.

Online viewing tip. Do you like Japanese animation? Do you like Japanese Flash animation? Do you like a lot of Japanese Flash animation? For the past several months, Fraser Lewry, outstanding tastemaker, trendsetter, well-traveled friend to kittens and penguins and MC at blogjam (and, of course, real-life friend who lent a desperately needed helping hand when it came to getting this very blog out of the starting gate), has succumbed to the mysteriously seductive surreality of odd little non-narratives proliferating throughout the .jp domain. "It's an addiction," he admits, "but at least once I've had my fill I don't seem to need another fix for a few months." Yesterday, Fraser made sure his avid readers' Sunday wouldn't go without its whimsy. "And yes," he adds, "that ascii cat makes several more appearances - I wish someone would explain to me just who he is." Anybody?



Posted by dwhudson at May 19, 2003 8:49 AM