Sights, sounds and shorts.

Look who's on the cover of Sight & Sound. There's much to admire in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, writes B Ruby Rich: "Moore has developed a new tone for this opus: aggrieved dismay. This time around he lets the audience supply the rage." But on the other hand, there's a flaw she comes this close to saying is a fatal one if Moore's true aim is to dethrone Bush. "There's a very simple statement that has to be made: the only way to defeat George W Bush is to elect John Kerry. But F*9/11 doesn't make it... I'm afraid that, unless his godfather Harvey Weinstein has a plan up his sleeve that's equal to his infamous Oscar coups, we could well be in trouble, come November."

But isn't that putting a bit much weight on a documentary that, let's face it, will probably be seen primarily by those who already agree with Moore in the first place? Let doc rev up the base and let's hope the Democrats know how to channel that anger and energy wisely. If Moore accomplishes nothing else, he'll already have achieved more than Kerry has so far.

Anyway. Elsewhere in the July issue, David Forgacs has a piece you'll definitely want to read if you're planning - and evidently, you should be - to devote six hours some time this year to The Best of Youth, the story of an Italian family told pretty much through the second half of the 20th century. And then there are the reviews: Liese Spencer on One for the Road, John Wrathall on A Silence Between Two Thoughts and Richard Kelly on Troy.

Writing for Alternet, Neem Mohaiemen, director of Muslims or Heretics?, takes stock of the wave of political docs on offer this summer and finds it well and good, but: "It's critical that these films are made available to heartland and swing state audiences as well." That's one thing. The other is the weird absence of fictional counterparts:

In a similar moment in the 1970s, Vietnam, Kent State, Attica, and the Watergate scandal inspired a dark anti-establishment and anti-war mood at movie theaters. This found expression in films as diverse as All the President's Men (Watergate), The Conversation (Phone-tapping), Network (corrupt media), Deer Hunter (suicidal Vietnam vets), Serpico (corrupt cops), Three Days Of The Condor (corrupt CIA), Apocalypse Now (trigger-happy lunatics in Vietnam), and Coming Home (crippled vet). By contrast, the only major Hollywood release this year that has a "political premise" is the Jonathan Demme remake of Manchurian Candidate (with Denzel Washington replacing Frank Sinatra, read into that what you will!).

Michael Agger has a piece on the New York Asian Film Festival most probably unlike any other you'll find, not only recounting the short history of the fest but also practically delighting in its vivid portrait of one of the founders, Grady Hendrix: "If you wanted to see, say, a naked man suspended from hooks so that his skin stretches, while someone pours boiling oil all over him and sticks needles through his cheeks, well, he knows just the movie for you."

Also in the New Yorker:

• David Denby admits that, with Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore has come a long way as a filmmaker, but he still finds Moore the polemicist, the "joker," immensely frustrating. Since that's hardly news, what's more interesting about his review is the apparent contrast between Moore's faith in the American public and his own. Read it through, see if you catch the same dichotomy.
• In an online-only interview, Amy Davidson asks Connie Buck about her print-only feature on the governor of California, and sure enough, "the Presidency is, indeed, Schwarzenegger's long-term goal."
• Fox is claiming the "revolution" will be televised. Nancy Franklin is amused.

Via Perlentaucher:

• Mohamed El-Assyouti interviews Osama Fawzi, director of Bahib Al-Sima (I Love Cinema), for Al-Ahram Weekly: "The film is set in the 1960s because, Fawzi explains, 'there are many nuances to the story that [he] would have not been permitted to include in a film directly representing contemporary Egypt and because the historic distance allows for a contemplation of the root causes of the problems we face now.'"

• Smruti Koppikar in Outlook India: "By looking at the way majority communalism has crept into our constitutional institutions, corrupting them with ideological hardliners and rendering them incapable of rising to their calling, Dev makes a hard-hitting statement about the India we encounter. It’s about ‘us’ versus ‘them’, Hindus and Muslims, mainstream and isolated, ‘natural’ citizens and second-class citizens." Subash K Jha interviews the film's star, Amitabh Bachchan.

Adrian Martin in Film-Philosophy: "Because it is so good at what it does, and so astute within the limits it sets for itself, [John Gibbs's] Mise-en-scène: Film Style and Interpretation is a book worth arguing with."

Online viewing tip. Music videos from the house of Colonel Blimp.

Posted by dwhudson at June 21, 2004 7:28 AM