Shorts, 9/8.

So Jonathan Demme is remaking The Manchurian Candidate with Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington. That seems to be the occasion for Louis Menand's piece in the New Yorker on the movie and the book, though he buries it way down there towards the end. The article is terrific on the historical context and repercussions of both the film and novel, but the focus is on the author, Richard Condon:

Michael Crichton writes books that any idiot can film; he practically supplies camera angles. But Condon's is not an easy book to film, in part because its tone is not readily imitated cinematically, and in part because much of it is, or was in 1962, virtually unfilmable. Strange as the movie is - a thriller teetering on the edge of camp - the book is stranger.... Some people like their bananas ripe to the point of blackness. The Manchurian Candidate is a very ripe banana, and, for those who have the taste for it, delectable.

Also in the New Yorker: Noah Baumbach eavesdrops behind the couch ("Maybe you wish Disney was your parent company, too. Any associations?") and David Denby reviews two movies I'd very much like to see.

I don't know about you, though, but the fall preview in Sunday's New York Times left me rather... unexcited? Maybe because I'm already looking forward to Lost in Translation, Dogville, maybe a couple of others. And of course, The Return of the King. I haven't really drilled into the month-by-month breakdown yet, but I can't help wondering: Is that all there is? Not a good question to have lingering in the air after a ho-hum summer like this one. Anyway, also in the NYT:

Brent Staples's editorial places The Human Stain in the context of the 40s, "a neglected period in the racial history of this country."

Yet another piece on that Pentagon showing of The Battle of Algiers. Michael T. Kaufman has a few more details; e.g., only "about 40 officers and civilian experts" attended the screening? Then again, if it's the right 40...

Virginia Heffernan on And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, a TV movie HBO hopes is "both grander and more precise than ordinary television." Antonio Banderas at the official site: "When you tell people about this story - that there was an American crew filming Pancho Villa in battle, in 1914 in Mexico - they say that's not true, that it is a fantasy, a legend. But it is true. It happened."

Laura M. Holson on the changes going on at Warner Brothers: "[T]he chill at the studio is beginning to thaw."

With "control of the film, television and music industries in the United States [down] to a half-dozen conglomerates," David D. Kirkpatrick examines why "mergers may not be the solution to the industry's problems."

You might want a shower after this one: "And I said, 'Mr. President, I can't make the movie work because I can't sort out three different people: the president, the commander in chief and a guy called George W. Bush who is married with kids and a full complement of emotions.'" The president, Mr. Chetwynd said, was sympathetic. "He said: 'Oh, I understand. Here's what happened.'"

And Elvis Mitchell settles on a theme - music - and files from Toronto, which leads us to...

The festival round-up.

One last look at Venice (it "ended with two surprises") from Derek Malcolm in the Guardian.

IndieWIRE reports that Miramax has picked up Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi.

And Screen Daily's last review from Venice. For Lee Marshall, Michael Winterbottom's Code 46, an "all-British sci-fi movie," is "a disappointing use of over £1.5m in lottery money."

On to Toronto, then, where Denis Seguin, like Elvis Mitchell, has been lucky enough to see the new Guy Maddin, The Saddest Music In The World: "Endlessly inventive, brimming with spit-fire wit, an homage to cinema stretching from formalist silent melodrama to screw-ball comedies of the 1930s and underpinned by contemporary political satire: this is a true work of film art."

Seguin also likes Gun-shy, "a slow-burning yet always engaging psychological thriller."

Fall might be better than it looked at first glance. For indieWIRE's Peter Brunette, Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu's 21 Grams is "a triumph from beginning to end." Meanwhile, Wendy Mitchell, Eugene Hernandez and Brian Brooks track the wheeling and dealing and Hernandez sez The Corporation, a new doc from Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, "is bound to have people buzzing after its press and industry screening... At the core of the movie, which includes a collection of stories illustrated with archival footage, is a diagnosis of the corporation as meeting the criteria of a psychopath."

And heavens, here's someone who's having a good time in Toronto: JRobert. Leaves Darren Hughes - and me, for that matter - "more than a wee bit jealous."

John Boorman in the Guardian: "The blockbuster movie, now utterly dominant and crushing better films, is set to destroy the Hollywood studios; the monster is turning on its makers.... The American military, able to crush every opponent, is in danger of bankrupting the US. Is there an inherent flaw in a system whereby everything gets bigger and bigger until it collapses under its own weight?"

In the Independent, Charlotte O'Sullivan talks to Rebecca Miller and Geoffrey Macnab surveys the chances Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers has of making to the US without getting cut.

Edward Guthmann profiles Javier Bardem and Bart Mills does the honors for Lili Taylor, both in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jonathan Rosenbaum on why September 11 is "indispensable."

It's nearly all "Shelf Worthy" this week for Bamboo Dong.

Online viewing tip. Nicolas Cage, losing it on Letterman.

Posted by dwhudson at September 8, 2003 8:56 AM