Shorts, 1/15.

Humble though it seems, the Italian neorealist movement influenced the making of movies in Europe and across the globe for decades to come - technologically, artistically, philosophically. Its watermark is perceptible in the films of New Wave France, of the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, of directors working in the contemporary Middle East and Asia. Neorealism taught the world that the lives of everyday people are remarkable, even beautiful, and that their struggles against poverty, mistreatment, and despair are representative of the human condition.

Also in the Austin Chronicle: Anne S Lewis interviews Joseph Tovares, who's got a new documentary, Remember the Alamo: "Texas history is very messy; everyone is always taking from somebody else."

"Director's Bureau is really sort of an arranged marriage between me and Roman Coppola. I didn't really know him, I knew Spike and Sofia. But I thought, 'Oh, this must work, because I like everyone around him.'" Readymade interviews Mike Mills, whose debut feature, Thumbsucker, based on the novel by Walter Kirn, features Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio and Keanu Reeves. Nice start. Via greg.org.

"Chalte Chalte was a hit. Baghban was a hit. Kal Ho Naa Ho is a hit. What is their secret formula?" asks Sunil Gautam at Rediff. Answer: "Mediocre stories, hackneyed emotions and dollops of self-pity.... The bad news is, we love it." Via Beware of the Blog.

Rebecca Traister points to a lively discussion regarding the casting of Brokeback Mountain, probably Ang Lee's next film. Based on Annie Proulx's short story, it is, as one anonymously quoted Hollywood exec puts it, "gay cowboys!" Also in Salon: Amy Reiter interviews Toni Collette.

Steve Monaco's "No-Life Top 10." It goes to 5.

When Woody Allen fired Annabelle Gurwitch, she joined up with ten other actors to to perform Fired! on Broadway, "an evening of tales, some lurid, some humiliating, of being sacked from acting jobs," as Carol Rocamora describes it. Also in the Guardian:

Kate Stables's seven online viewing tips.

"Two people in a room, one of whom is trying to be painted by the other." Doc maker Bruno Wollheim tells his version. So do those two people in a room.

Following Maev Kennedy's report on British films' booming budgets, Andrew Pulver wonders if Brits are getting their pounds' worth.

Geoffrey Macnab meets Vikram Jayanti to talk about his new doc, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine, but both are rather distracted by his other new doc, The Golden Globes: Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret.

Michael Fox in SF Weekly:

I glanced up at the marquee. "DETOUR WITH ANN SAVAGE IN PERSON JANUARY 16." She was quite a dame, that Ann. Cruel, some said. Heartless. Nah, she just looked out for herself. She'd heard every line men peddled and seen every weakness, and learned that a smart broad didn't count on them for nothing. Hell, she'd even turned down an A-list director who'd asked her out! Any break she'd ever had she'd made herself.

The event is the Noir City Film Festival, presented by Eddie Muller, author of a healthy handful of books on the subject as well as our noir primer.

Cahiers du cinéma, January issue table of contents, courtesy of Craig Keller.

"Ah, the first Kaurismäki experience. Terri Sutton remembers it well in City Pages.

"Blowing up buildings is an image you don't want to see anymore." Roland Emmerich tells USA Today's Andy Seiler why he's switching to tornadoes, hail and snowstorms, floods and so forth.

Dan Engber describes the work of Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar which makes use of technology that "descends from Muybridge's pioneering work in the 19th century and finds its modern parallel in the special effects studios around the Bay Area." Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian: Dennis Harvey on Victor Sjöström, Lynn Rapoport The Company and David Fear on The Statement.

"When people learn that I have seen the movie, they generally ask two questions: Is it really anti-Semitic? and Does it end with the Resurrection? I could honestly respond 'No' to the former question and 'Yes' to the latter, but instead I hem and haw." Patton Dodd reviews Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ (and reports on his uncomfortable onstage interview at "the evangelical megaministry Focus on the Family") in the inaugural issue of The New Pantagruel (via Metaphilm).

The film will be released on 2000 screens, reports Sharon Waxman in the New York Times. She's been busy. She also reports that Harvey Weinstein's lobbying members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association pretty darn hard in the run-up to the Golden Globes.

The New York Observer's Andrew Sarris has taken his time to compose his end-of-the-year lists, emphasis on the plural. And well he should. After all, as he reminds us, he's been at this "for close to half a century."

With top ten lists fading, though, Oscar predictions are the next wave where math and cinema meet. And the most fun of these is probably going to remain the Michael Musto's. David Thomson registers his predictions in the Independent.

Meantime, the screeners are already on the loose. First it was Something's Gotta Give, now it's The Last Samurai. A second screener has been found online. And now House of Sand and Fog and Cold Mountain screeners have popped up at eBay. If I were a conspiracy nut, I might go so far as to suggest that, to prove a point, the MPAA... but nah, I'm not a conspiracy nut.

That's via Movie City News, where you'll find an eye-popping press release for Jonathan Caouette's first feature, Tarnation. Gus Van Sant, who's signed on to executive produce after seeing a rough cut calls it "the shit." John Cameron Mitchell, who'll be editorial consultant, says it's "the most powerful and original new film that I've seen in years." And it was made with Apple's iMovie for a grand total of $218.32.

The Sweet Smell of Success

Back to Musto and the Voice:

In Hollywood's eyes, New York is generally either a glistening paradise of glamour and romance or a backstabby cesspool of depravity and lies. I've always preferred the latter vision, not only because it may be more accurate but because it's usually tinged with a barbed, titillating wit that makes the cesspool seem like so much fun.

This entry's Battle of Algiers links: Leslie Camhi in the Voice and Armond White in the New York Press, where you'll also find Matt Zoller Seitz on Rolf de Heer's The Tracker and DVD reviews: Emir Kusturica's Underground and that whole Indiana Jones thing.

The European Commission is taking Hollywood to court.

Rip Torn: Arrested.

Spalding Gray: Missing. More.

In the LA Weekly: Anna Ciezadlo, briefly, on filmmaking under extraordinary circumstances - in Iraq; and Ella Taylor reviews Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers.

Bob Davis reviews Tony Lee Moral's Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie for Film-Philosophy.

Empire talks to John Woo about the musical he'll be making, "something he's previously described as a cross between The Killer and Cabaret."

Deborah Wilker details Disney's shutting down of its Orlando-based animation unit in the Hollywood Reporter and, on another front, Chris Gardner quotes Bernardo Bertolucci: "The Dreamers is finally making it to the US in its uncut version. I'm relieved - in so many ways - that the distributor has had the vision to release my original film. After all, an orgasm is better than a bomb."

Posted by dwhudson at January 15, 2004 2:51 PM