Shorts, 8/18.

Congratulations on those Locarno Leopards to director Sabiha Sumar and Best Actress (shared with Holly Hunter (Thirteen), Diana Dumbrava (Maria) Kirron Kher for Silent Waters (Khamosh Pani).

Elvis Mitchell came up with quite an opener for the New York Times's big whopping special section in Sunday's edition, "The DVD Comes of Age": "Has there been a single technological advance - even the advent of sound - that has changed movies as quickly and thoroughly as the DVD has?"

Bigger than sound, eh. Well, there's a debate there, to be sure, but I'm a bit too preoccupied at the moment to leap into it. If you're so inclined, start without me. Points to consider: What sound did to more than a few acting careers, its effect on the costs of production, its overwhelming reception among moviegoers and the comment by Francis Ford Coppola, probably made some time during post-production on Apocalypse Now, that sound is 50 percent of any film. At the same time, keep in mind the point made in Mitchell's title, "Everyone's a Film Geek Now," the fact that the changes we're seeing DVD make now were really set in motion, albeit a lot more slowly though no less profoundly, by the advent of the VCR a couple of decades ago, and the probability that the DVD will do away with certain commonly accepted notions such as "feature length" and "the definitive version."

At any rate, the special section's a delight for any film geek (which would mean everyone, wouldn't it?) and there's no point in ticking off links to every article when there's a front door to the whole thing. Even so, there are three of particular interest: Over at greg.org, Greg Allen generously highlights Veronique Vienne's piece on what David Byrne's been doing with PowerPoint lately when he's got his own fascinating article in there on the heavy traffic among traders of video art that builds to this slap of a quote: "'For videos, editions are fake,' says Pierre Huyghe, in a comment seemingly designed to alarm his dealer. 'When Rodin could only cast three sculptures of a nude before the mold lost its sharpness, it made sense. But all my works are on my hard drive, in ones and zeros.'" It's an issue that net.artists like Olia Lialina have been struggling with for years, but now, faster processors and cheap memory have introduced it to video artists as well.

The third one is the interview conducted by Kelefa Sanneh with three of the most... well, just the most most directors working today, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham.

Movie City News points to "A Great Q&A With Sofia Coppola And Her Lost In Translation Producer," and it is. Coppola and Ross Katz have fun stories to tell about Bill Murray, Japan and the soundtrack that's already generated a bit of buzz. Click the title, too, and watch the trailer. MCN's Ray Pride has seen the film and was evidently touched: "It's a feat of levitation, contemplation, mood and love, love, love..."

In the interview, Coppola says:

Then there are these advertising campaigns that you see in Japan: American actors endorsing products and being a little bit embarrassed about it. I'm affectionately poking fun at it; I don't look at it as hypocritical. It's just so weird to be in Japan and to look up and see Brad Pitt selling coffee, and see a Brad Pitt head floating in a vending machine.

Which sent me back to Japander.com, where you can easily lose an afternoon watching this stuff. Californians might be particularly interested in the Governator-wannabe's spots.

According to Hugh Hart in the San Francisco Chronicle, the recall race is throwing old loyalties in Hollywood for a loop: "Ironically, as some longtime Democrats give serious consideration to Schwarzenegger's candidacy, a few Hollywood Republicans are less than impressed."

25 members of the DVDBeaver.com mailing list have created Top 20 lists at YMDb over the past week or so, and now, the results have been melded into a single collective Top 20. No doubt about it, it's a great list. These are, after all, some of the most well-viewed people you're likely to run across online. ("Well-viewed," by the way, is a term I'd like to see enter common usage; think of it as a counterpart to "well-read." But with a mere two syllables, it falls off the tongue a lot more easily than "cinematically literate.") Even so, there's a rounding-off at work here similar to one that produced the Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll last year. The individual lists (critics, directors) naturally had a lot more personality, an element of eclectic surprise.

If you can get around the trouble the site seems to be having today, Outlook India has a story by Sanjay Suri on how Mira Nair's next film, Vanity Fair, with Reese Witherspoon, Gabriel Byrne and Bob Hoskins, is coming along. For one thing, Witherspoon's pregnancy has been worked into the story.

Larry Cohen, interviewed by Gil Jawetz for DVD Talk: "I always love New York and try to work there as often as possible because it's the greatest city to shoot in and has the most fantastic backlot. The whole city is a great backlot." Good news: Q: The Winged Serpent is returning to DVD along with God Told Me To and Bone, featuring the performance that Yaphet Kotto considers his best.

Fresh at Film-Philosophy: "Who would dare to draw a box around such a film, such a monster? To simply immerse oneself in the questions is good enough." Richard I. Pope, "In Kubrick's Crypt, a Derrida/Deleuze Monster; or, An-Other Return to 2001."

Four - count 'em, four - Shelf Worthies, five Rentals and two Perishables in Bamboo Dong's new back-to-school "Shelf Life."

ICv2 has the full story on The Matrix Comics, due in stores in October, that is, at around the same time as the Reloaded DVD when the PR machinery will be revving up in earnest for the release of Revolutions in November. The publisher downplays that angle, though: "The bottom line is that we're not doing it to make a lot of money.  We're just doing it as a direct result of people saying, 'we'd like to hold this,' and 'we'd like to put this on our shelves.'" Ok... By the way, looking for a film with elements of Hinduism the other day (never mind), I came across this in the Journal of Religion and Film: "Hinduism is one worldview that has not yet been applied to the trilogy and, depending on the curve ball thrown by the Wachowskis in Revolutions, it may or may not be helpful in the end. Despite that, let's press on..." Julien R. Fielding, "Reassessing The Matrix/Reloaded."

Anyway, I also have to point to this other ICv2 story simply because it's one of the great titles for anything anywhere: "ADV has announced the upcoming release of All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku DASH! Mode 1, the first volume of the OVA tie-in to the Nuku Nuku series."

Online viewing tips. Let's start with Norbert Rost's roundup of Bush-bashing Flash animation at Telepolis. The Broken Saints crew is actively encouraging you to download all 190 megs of their opus. And in their newsletter, they point enthusiastically to RantTV.

Posted by dwhudson at August 18, 2003 8:54 AM