Shorts, 10/16.

In 1965, Warhol announced that he was giving up painting for filmmaking. It didn't stick, but you get the idea. Production at The Factory was shifting focus. In the literature on Andy Warhol's films, you'll see numbers ranging from a total output of anywhere between 650 and 4,000 individual works. In other words, a lot. And yet, even though Warhol approached filmmaking in very much the same way he approached painting, his films remain about as unknown and unpopular as his paintings are known and popular. The paintings are everywhere; the films are nowhere.

That's me, actually, about a year and a half ago. And of course, that's changing. At the Austin Museum of Art, for example, the "Andy Warhol" exhibition will be emphasizing the films every bit as much as the paintings. For the Austin Chronicle, Jacqueline May talks to Andy Warhol Museum director Tom Sokolowski ("He will be seen as the defining artist of the second half of the 20th century. I don't see any of the things that he predicted lessening, just intensifying") and editor Louis Black recalls putting Billy Ondine up in his house in 1982, simply part of the package in those days for anyone who wanted to show The Chelsea Girls, Vinyl, The Loves of Ondine and the like.

Meanwhile, on the west coast, one helluva program is being cooked up by Joel Shepard. "Ten Hours of Torment," Saturday, noon to 10 pm at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The Bay Guardian's Dennis Harvey asks Shepard, "When did all this start?" Turns out, Chelsea Girls has something to do with it. Also in the SFBG: Johnny Ray Huston looks back at Vancouver.

"To cut to the chase, Robert Bresson's heart-breaking and magnificent Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) - the story of a donkey's life and death in rural France - is the supreme masterpiece by one of the greatest of 20th-century filmmakers." Well, there you have it. J. Hoberman, who also reviews "the ultimate underground movie, Star Spangled to Death, Ken Jacobs's epic, bargain-basement assemblage." Also in the Village Voice: Leslie Camhi on the New York Turkish Film Festival and Ed Halter on Jonas Mekas.

From the horror, the horror dept: Doug Cummings's top ten. Beautiful, stylish films, all. And it's no surprise that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original 1974 shocker, does not make the cut. But it's worth a second look at the Austin Chronicle: On the eve of the opening of the remake, the paper is running Black and Ed Lowry's 1977 notes on the original.

And to think it all started with a website. Harry Knowles, film producer.

A terrific series continues, "Reality in Anime": the Tokyo Tower, vending machines, yukata, futon and tatami mats, K-cars, and most recently, Ferris wheels. Slate's Seth Stevenson is over there, too. What a tourist.

Film-Philosophy looks east: Robert Castle, "The Radical Capability of Rashomon"; Dorota Ostrowska, "Sokurov's Russian Ark"; John Riley, "A (Ukrainian) Life in Soviet Film," on George O. Liber's Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet Film.

Ennio Morricone Remixes. Vol. 1. More info.

The Stranger: Nate Lippens previews the 2003 Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

In the Guardian and Observer: