Shorts, 10/22.

Mark Miller's "Wachowski Brothers FAQ" in the November issue of Wired is good fun, though a lot of it may not be news to many. It's the accompanying piece on Dane A. Davis, the "audio effects guru" and " the ears of two industries" (movies and games), that's intriguing.

Davis, who heads up Danetracks in LA, won an Oscar in 1999 for sound effects editing on The Matrix, has recently done Reloaded and Revolutions, so this is interesting:

Davis knows that sound design has a long way to go. "If you compare it to the visual world, we're still 20 years behind. CG imaging is just at the point where it's starting to look real." Computer-generated audio, however, continues to sound really fake. The solution, he says, is sophisticated audio software that, alas, remains a generation away.

He wants to be able to tell a computer, for example, the weight, dimensions, mass and distance an object falls and achieve the sort of aural verisimilitude CGI is just beginning to master. Also in Wired: David Kushner on Ed Lake, "Fake Detective, defender of Hollywood babes," and briefs on the companies behind the trailers we watch and on Doug Chiang and his Robota project.

Just caught up with Ian Whitney, who's got a terrific review of Kill Bill at Duell Lens - "It's the Ouroboros conga line of thievery. By revealing every influence of every influence, Tarantino makes it impossible to accuse him of anything except becoming the newest member of the long, valuable tradition of cultural larceny" - and who points to HKFlix.com's "Kill Bill Study Guide," breaking references down to eight separate categories, the last a sort of open source deconstruction project. To top things off, the "Guide" points at the end to the 42-page press notes from the official site.

Another handy guide, but an odd choice of words from Planet Bollywood: "[F]rom the last week of October to the first few weeks of November, several big films are going to be mounted." Nine are blurbed. Just in time, a strike in the state of Maharashtra, protesting a ticket tax, has come to an end.

Film Threat points to the International Cinematographers Guild site where you can see who IGC members have chosen as the most influential cinematographers, like, ever. Eleven in all, with 19 honorable mentions.

Another good number: "Record-Breaking 55 Countries in Competition for Oscar." One of them is the Palestinian film, Divine Intervention. The BBC reports: "Palestine is not recognised as a nation but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to make 'an exception'." And for all the hoopla over the screeners - justified hoopla, mind you - the Informa Media Group has conducted a study and determined that, according to Chris Nuttall in the Financial Times, "The film business will not go the way of the music sector and suffer large declines in sales due to internet piracy."

"When Madness and Genius, the first film from Ryan Eslinger, has its US premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival later this week it will mark one of the more assured debuts from an American filmmaker in some time." A solid endorsement from Eugene Hernandez. That celebrated festival opens today and runs through Sunday. Also in indieWIRE: Hernandez again: "A number of New York independent film companies have been quietly facing cutbacks and consolidation"; and Jeremy O'Kasick talks to first-time director Peter Hedges Pieces of April).

Another festival definitely worth noting: The Three Rivers Film Festival, to be held for the 22nd time in Pittsburgh from November 7 to 23. One of the presenting sponsors is Pittsburgh Filmmakers, an independent institution that got rolling 33 years ago as a filmmaking-equipment sharing cooperative. Do check the highlights. Keywords: Buster Keaton and the Alloy Orchestra; The Forgotten; "an improv supergroup paying tribute to the landmark avant-garde films of Stan Brakhage"; and Pittsburgh punk, ca. 1980.

Daragh Sankey passes along a few "stories n' jokes" Roger Corman recently told at a Q&A session. The one about the Fantastic Four is one of those incredible only-in-Hollywood stories.

Jane Smiley in Salon: "Last night I saw the movie made from the book, The Secret Lives of Dentists, starring Hope Davis as me, Campbell Scott as my former husband, and several darling little girls as my daughters. Such an experience of déjà vu, Hollywood-style, is a rare privilege... The first time, I laughed from beginning to end... Last night, no one laughed."

Jonathan Romney profiles Guy Maddin in the Independent.

"How could such a thoughtful, deliberate, and precise journalist have gone so stupendously wrong?" Slate's Jack Shafer reviews the Gregg Easterbrook brouhaha.

"Some say genius is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. Maybe, but that is certainly one definition of the contemporary notion of cool: something or someone at once wrenchingly embarrassing and deeply admirable." Alessandra Stanley on Kid Notorious and the "enviable bravado and poignant vulgarity" of Robert Evans. Also in the NYT:

Laura Miller on how books and movies scare differently. See also: Another juxtaposition from Joshua Clover in the Village Voice.

Ben Sisario on Bang on a Can's cinematic accompaniment.

Laura M. Holson on what filmmakers trim to get an R rating rather than NC-17.

Peter M. Nichols outlines the four different endings available on the 28 Days Later DVD.

Mim Udovitch's NYT Magazine profile of Robert Downey Jr..

And in the Guardian:

DJ Taylor on Gordon Williams, the man who wrote The Siege of Trencher's Farm, which Sam Peckinpah filmed as Straw Dogs.

Fiachra Gibbons on Bill Viola.

"Art nurtures the soul of a society." Robert Redford, extracted. Briefly.

Geoffrey Macnab visits Howard Shore, who must be escorting quite a few reporters through his studio in Watford, where he's putting the final touches on the score for LOTR: The Return of the King.

And finally, the story I just wish would go away. "Robert De Niro has been diagnosed with prostate cancer but is expected to make a full recovery." Let's hope that the next time we hear of it, it'll be about that full recovery.

Fresh at Film-Philosophy: Aakash Singh on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Sheila Petty on Zhang Yimou: Interviews, edited by Frances Gateward.

Long-time readers know we're fans. Cindy Sherman's The Complete Untitled Film Stills is out.

Rob Nelson looks back on the New York Film Festival for City Pages.

Screen Daily reviews:

Ermanno Olmi is "reaching new heights in his old age," proclaims Lee Marshall. Singing Behind The Screens is "a visually seductive and consistently original fable about war and peace, defiance and surrender."

"[T]he debut of actor Lee Kang-Sheng as writer and director indicates beyond doubt that he shares the visual and spiritual world of his mentor and friend, Tsai Ming-Liang, in whose films he has regularly appeared for the last 12 years." Dan Fainaru on The Missing.

Infernal Affairs II "confirms the promise and prowess that writing-directing team Andrew Lau Wai-Keung and Alan Mak Siu-Fai showed in their earlier film," writes Patrick Frater.

"October's first week confirmed that California doesn't merely have trouble distinguishing between facts of life and Hollywood fictions: it wants the latter to define the former." Johnny Ray Huston proposes a "recall-hangover cure": Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain's documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian: Susan Gerhard talks to Kate Moses, author of Wintering, "a richly detailed imagining of Plath's last months," about that movie. Michael Musto attends a screening, by the way, nabs a quote from the star, and heads right off to gather more names to drop. Nobody does it better. Also in the Voice: Ed Halter on "Polish Bloc-Busters." Cute!

Posted by dwhudson at October 22, 2003 8:57 AM