July 7, 2004

Shorts, 7/7.

The Last Tycoon "'There's something about this business that doesn't work anymore," he says, with a mixture of amusement and pure fear." Bruce Feirstein engages in one of those "'let's take a meeting and see if anything comes of it' sessions" with a producer in LA. And he's convinced the producer is onto something. In the New York Observer, he outlines three basic elements of fundamental change that are set to rock the entertainment industry. For most reading a blog like this one, what Feirstein has to say won't be news; but, like one of those PowerPoint presentations you actually enjoy whether you'd admit it or not, it pulls together various strands on one page.

Also in the NYO:

  • Jake Brooks and Anna Schneider-Mayerson gather memories of Brando.
  • Neither De-Lovely nor The Clearing do much for Rex Reed.
  • Andrew Sarris has kinder words for De-Lovely this for Spider-Man 2: "What drives the love story most strongly is the overwhelming spirituality of the camera's love affair with Ms Dunst. I haven't seen such luminous close-ups since the great screen stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. Who would have thought that Mr. Raimi, the director of horror films, would light up the screen with such a chaste depiction of love, and without a trace of lechery?"
  • Brooks's DVD column.

Ed Halter has a sort of on-the-other-hand companion piece to Feirstein's: "The accumulation of social activity around film releases like Fahrenheit and The Passion, planned or otherwise, is a logical extension of how moviegoing cultures evolved during the rise of the Internet."

Also in the Village Voice:

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Speaking of Some Kind of Monster, David Fear tells the story behind the film and asks the band and the filmmakers what they were after: "By removing the stigma of therapy - by showing that even hardcore dudes like these guys could benefit from sharing their feelings - it even offers a way out from bottoming out." Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian: Fear previews the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, this weekend at the Castro, and Cheryl Eddy recommends Penny Panayotopoulou's Hard Goodbyes: My Father.

At Alternet, LiP editor Lisa Jervis: "There's something going on in the culture that makes the Ass-Kicking Babe such a hot property. I would love to argue that we're seeing a feminist influence on the way that femaleness can now be combined with power. Unfortunately, I can't."

Ben Slater is a film critic based in Singapore. He's also associate director of the performance company spell#7 and has just launched a blog, beginning with an interview with Kim Ki-Duk, whose view of women would probably not sit well with Jervis, though they might agree on another point: "In the contemporary world, religion has become a tool for power, for people like George Bush, its not really religion, it's a vehicle for power. Religion should be giving us encouragement and security."

Doug Cummings isn't buying Terrence Rafferty's take on Bresson.

Filmbrain points to the new site for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's homage to Ozu, Café Lumière, plus: A new screen capture quiz.

In the New York Press:

  • Joshua Cohen on Brando and Paul Buhle's book, From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture.

  • With Richard Linklater's latest scoring almost universal praise, surely you wouldn't expect Armond White to join in? No, such unanimity calls for a pan. A really big pan: "Everything wrong with today's movie culture can be found in Before Sunset." Well, look for an alternative take in the City Pages, where Rob Nelson interviews Linklater and Laura Sinagra reviews the film. Ah, one more: Vince Keenan on "how it turns the screws tighter than most thrillers. How long before one of these two says something that they cannot take back – or something that they’ll have to act on?"

  • Matt Zoller Seitz on Some Kind of Monster and, briefly, Afraid of Everything.

For the New York Times, Alessandra Stanley watches Into Character, the reality show that allows people to live out their movie fantasies, and the trivia game show, Ultimate Film Fanatic, with your host, Film Threat editor Chris Gore. More on that one from Matt Dentler.

Luke Harding reports in the Guardian that Rosa von Praunheim plans to shoot Your Heart in My Brain, a film about "Germany's infamous cannibal Armin Meiwes."

Via Cinema Minima, a new (to me) blog to keep an eye on: Cinemocracy: "Movies about politics. Politics about movies. Hollywood and Washington, hybridized."



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Posted by dwhudson at July 7, 2004 6:23 AM