September 15, 2003

Shorts, 9/15.

Indira Gandhi Having gone a little bonkers over the weekend, let's keep these shorts short.

In Outlook India, Sheela Reddy surveys the coming onslaught of books and movies about Indira Gandhi now that there's a full-blown nostalgia wave going on. Quote from Kamleshwar, the screenwriter for Aandhi and another upcoming loosely-based-on-the-real-life biopic: "Wherever you go, people talk of her, wish she was here now. They are feeling the vacuum."

For the Globe and Mail, Ben King describes what it's like to be an extra for a Bollywood production - there's even a sidebar telling you how you can, too.

Mark Olsen interviews Quentin Tarantino for the Independent. Once the whole why'd-you-split-it bit is over, it gets pretty interesting.

The Deal, a TV movie about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, may not sound like riveting entertainment when you first hear of it, but consider that the director is Stephen Frears. Tim Adams preps us before talking with the director: "Frears's film, scripted by Peter Morgan, borrows much of the substance of its story from James Naughtie's book The Rivals. It has, since it was announced, enjoyed an intriguing little history of its own." Also in the Observer:

  • Amelia Gentleman on the "sordid aftermath of the death of one of France's best-loved actresses (Marie Trintignant) at the hands of her rock star lover."
  • Peter Conrad on Leni Riefenstahl. Very biting towards the end there - there are times when I share the sentiment, but I'd still like to see what Jodie Foster would do with the story.
  • Liz Hoggard on Jürgen Teller's home movies.

    Toronto wrap-up No. 1: Eugene Hernandez does the honors at indieWIRE. And how. Quite a report, the gist of which, if you haven't heard, is that Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi and Denys Arcand's Barbarian Invasions came away with top honors.

    In the Guardian's Toronto report, B Ruby Rich says she quite likes Jane Campion's In the Cut. Her take on Meg Ryan's career move - "So long typecast as the kittenish girl next door with clean-cut sex appeal, she thoroughly reinvents herself as Frannie, an introverted schoolteacher who, opening up to the kinky seductions of a homicide detective, becomes the target of a serial killer" - is shared by just about everyone - except for Ryan herself, as we read in Moviehole.

    Greg Allen caught K Street and has a few things to say about the show's camerawork and its metrosexual agenda.

    Today's Bill Murray piece: A fashionably late entry from Venice, via phone no less, from Lillian Ross at the New Yorker.

    In the New York Times:

  • Frank Rich: "Only in America could a guy who struts in an action-hero's Hollywood costume and barks macho lines from a script pass for a plausible political leader."
  • J. Hoberman: "The Manchurian Candidate belongs to a cycle of movies specific to the Kennedy era."
  • John Schwartz on who's leaking those digital copies of Hollywood flicks to KaZaA - it's "an inside job"! Cindy Sherman
  • Jacques Steinberg on the Hollywood Reporter's new ad campaign. The idea: poke fun at their reader's "self-involved world of overnight grosses and plastic surgery."
  • Dave Smith on clueless parents in the movies.
  • Amei Wallach on Cindy Sherman curating a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit. Worth another look if it's been a while: Sherman's Untitled Film Stills.

    Rex Sorgatz has found the uber-meta MP3 of the moment.

    There's something about George Lucas that's bugging Tagliner Alistair Reid these days.

    Bamboo Dong's fallen for a robot. She's still got time to watch anime, though: 3 shelf worthies, 5 rentables, no perishables.

    Online viewing tip. The CBC's feature on Norman Jewison.



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    Posted by dwhudson at September 15, 2003 11:21 AM