Shorts, 2/23.

"Very, very few people ever ask me about the film as a film," Errol Morris tells Greg Allen. And in response to Greg's first question, Morris refers to Michael Bierut's entry on The Fog of War at Design Observer. The politics of the film have been well hashed out in just about every publication imaginable; Greg's interview, then, is especially valuable in that he's gotten Morris to talk - in free verse, no less - about the imagery some reviewers have had problems with (the dominos, the spreadsheets and so on) as well as about the influence of The Thin Blue Line and the themes that have run throughout all his films: "This interplay of fate and chance, / of the inexorable and the capricious."

It used to be so easy to place a German movie. As Angelica Fenner writes in Film-Philosophy, "The broader categories of Weimar cinema, Nazi cinema, the New German cinema, and more recently, Post-Wall cinema, conveniently correspond to significant political regimes and social movements in the broader history of the nation." A little too easy, a little too obvious. And so, the "long-anticipated reterritorialization of German cinema historiography" is now underway, its current status neatly measured in one collection from the BFI, The German Cinema Book.

Following a focus on British film in January - Bob Davis on Hitchcock's Marnie, Trevor G. Elkington on a collection of essays on Greenaway, Florian Grandena on Jacob Leigh's The Cinema of Ken Loach: Art in the Service of the People and Jonathan Wright on British Social Realist Film - February is all about the Germans. Joel Freeman argues that it's what's not there in Fritz Lang's M that makes it so powerful and Peter Ruppert reviews a book that argues that what Wim Wenders has been up to all these years is exploring "the possibilities of a cinema without the need for stories, or, more accurately, a cinema in which stories provide the minimal framework for the presentation of images."

Back to the Brits. "For those who think that British film history begins and ends with Danny Boyle and drawing room comedies, The League of Gentlemen (1959) is a timely reminder of the inventiveness and charm that typified British cinema culture in the early 1960s, providing a tutorial in clever plotting and sturdy acting along the way," writes Ben McCann and Colin Odell and Michelle le Blanc review another Basil Dearden film, All Night Long. Also in Kamera: Robert Williamson reports from the 2nd Bankok International Film Festival.

Via Tagline, Kevin Smith tells all about his upcoming Green Hornet project. To hear him tell it, here's what Harvey Weinstein answered after Smith gave him an outline but told him it was all much more than he could handle: "This is too good. I'm not letting you back out of this. It's time you grew up and pushed yourself by trying something different than all the talky flicks. You can do this. We'll surround you with an amazing support team. You're right to be scared - but it's a good fear. It's the kinda fear that's gonna make you try harder." Also: Smith's interview with Tom Cruise.

The Alien "Quadrilogy"? About sex, of course. A new piece by Jonathan MacDonald at metaphilm.

"As much as we may think we're too sophisticated to believe in anything as corny as old-fashioned heroism, few of us are beyond its grasp," writes Stephanie Zacharek in Salon. Audiences have embraced Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander, Nathan Algren in The Last Samurai and Aragorn and Eowyn in LOTR: Return of the King and yet liberals remain squeamish and suspicious of the very idea...

...all too aware of how the terms of heroism have been hijacked and harnessed into the service of conservatism and conformity. Politically speaking, heroism has become conflated with the idea that "might makes right." It's much more democratic, in theory at least, to walk softly and carry a big stick, particularly one that you have little intention of using. But true heroism - the sort that Jack Aubrey represents, as opposed to the kind that's designed with photo-ops in mind - has very little to do with kicking ass.

"The Hays Code is gone and definitely not lamented, but the sexual tension of The Seven Year Itch lives on." While Plasticians weigh that statement, Laura Picard reminds us that the mentality that brought us the Code in the first place is alive and well.

Scott Green's latest "AnimAICN" column is huge again.

In the Guardian, Observer and New York Times:

• In what makes for a sort of companion piece to Tom Charity's in Sight & Sound on the two versions of John Cassavetes's Shadows and the arguments they sparked, Ray Carney tells the suspenseful tale of how, after a 17-year search, he finally found the long lost first version.

• The NYT sits "two film critics of different generations, Stuart Klawans, of The Nation, and his younger colleague Nathan Lee, of The New York Sun," down to talk about Blow-Up.

• John Patterson on death in LA, Eurotrip's entertainingly stereotypical Europeans and Americans - and his run-in with Ben Stiller.

• Steve Rose interviews Tony Leung Chiu-wai.

• How much of an impact on the real world do movies actually have, wonders Janet Maslin.

• Harriet Lane profiles Charlize Theron.

• Laura M Holson tells that long hard story behind Exorcist: The Beginning, basically resulting in Morgan Creek financing two movies, one directed by Paul Schrader, the other directed by Renny Harlin: "What Mr. Schrader said he would like to do is show each film side by side in theaters. 'The question is, did they make the wrong film the first time or the second time?' he asked. 'I think the audience would like to judge.'"

• Fred Schruers predicts movie mogulhood for Jennifer Aniston.

• Stephanie Merritt meets Martin Freeman, the guy who plays Tim in The Office.

• A panel of 'xperts - Observer film critic Philip French, columnist Anne Thompson, producer Stephen Woolley, director Kevin Macdonald and Sandra Hebron, artistic director of the London Film Festival - pick their Oscar favorites.

• AO Scott on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, which, "in spite of its politically fraught setting and enough full-frontal nudity and uncut sexuality to revive the moribund NC-17 rating, does not plant itself in the midst of a culture war combat zone. It's not The Passion of the Christ. But the responses to it, whether rapturous or dismissive - my own was decidedly rapturous - , have been unusually passionate, and it seems to be one of the few recent movies that live up to the cliché: you either love it or hate it." Jonathan Rosenbaum, though, who remembers the summer of '68 in Paris, where and when he became friends with novelist and screenwriter Gilbert Adair, doesn't hate it, exactly, but he sure doesn't love it, either.

• Sharon Waxman reviews Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures and the NYT offers a brief opening excerpt.

Speaking of which, for Roger Ebert, and by way of Movie City News, Christine Vachon lists the ways Biskind got it wrong, at least as far as her own appearances in the book are concerned. A pattern is emerging in criticism of the book: Biskind doesn't love these movies the way he loved the films he wrote about in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

For indieWIRE, Brian Brooks reports that Pedro Almodóvar's La Mala Educacion (Bad Education) will open the 57th Festival de Cannes on May 12; also, the WGA and SAG winners.

Posted by dwhudson at February 23, 2004 9:17 AM