Weekend Shorts.

"The story's got all the elements. It's got humour, pathos, drama, relevance and topicality." That's Robert DeBitetto, senior vice-president of programming for A&E, on the network's plans to make a movie based on Gail Sheehy's Hillary's Choice, possibly starring... Sharon Stone? At any rate, the story's also got international appeal. The Hillary Blitz is global and it's already underway. The German newsweekly Der Spiegel, for example, gets a weekend jump on its prototype, Time, by publishing excerpts from her memoir in the issue out today. Here's bigger shot of the cover and there's Sharon Stone... Maybe.

On another political note, though we've already laid it on thick with regard to The Weather Underground, just a couple more pointers: Salon's Andrew O'Hehir talks to founding member Mark Rudd and two more notable reviews in Slate and indieWIRE.

As Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre prepares for Monday's 20th anniversary screening of The Right Stuff, Susan King talks to director Philip Kaufman and cast-folk Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Barbara Hershey and Pamela Reed. Also in the Los Angeles Times: Young non-actors who turn in terrific performances and Emanuel Levy, arguing that the "mass spectacles" we've been seeing each summer since the 80s are actually a return to the aesthetics of the silent era and "a philosophy that sees moviegoing as an experience meant to stir emotions rather than provoke ideas."

Xan Brooks reviews Joseph McBride's Searching for John Ford: "Depending on your stance, [Ford's] films either confirm him as the great fraudulent myth-maker of 20th-century American culture, or as the medium's most influential artist. McBride shows that the two need not be mutually exclusive."

With The Barbarian Invasions, Denys Arcand has his first real critical success since The Decline of the American Empire and Jesus of Montreal. A quick profile in the New York Times.

Online viewing tip. A-Kon 14, the massive anime convention that drew 7200 attendees to the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex, wrapped up a few days ago, but a zillion cosplay photos are now up and browsable at the galleries.



Posted by dwhudson at June 7, 2003 9:19 AM