July 15, 2004

Shorts, 7/15.

Film editor Sam Adams introduces the Philadelphia City Paper's cover package on the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, opening today and running through July 27.

PIGLFF

  • Christopher Münch (The Hours and the Times) has a new film, Harry and Max, screening at the fest, and Adams surveys his quietly persistent career.
  • Producer and director Lee Daniels will be receiving the Artistic Achievement Award; AD Amorosi finds out what he's about: "I'm a masochistic bitch looking for the truth."
  • City Paper critics preview around two dozen titles that'll be screening during the first week of the fest. As always, even if you're miles from Philadelphia, it's worth noting the recommendations, even if only mentally; your chance to catch them may come.

"Every now and again, we get to a moment in the history of internet journalism that requires a good look at where we have been and where we are going." David Poland does more than take a good look; this is a three-part, inside-n-out, say-'ah' check-up. Parts 2 and 3. Meanwhile, he's bullish on The Bourne Supremacy and the prospect of "a powerful adult franchise of slightly greater box office reach than the Jack Ryan series, but of a definitively superior quality."

Koreanfilm.org has added a page on the 60s. On the contemporary front, Alison Veneto turns in an "Introduction to Korean Cinema, Part I (of II)" at Movie Poop Shoot.

"The LA Times is going to be at war with the NY Times over entertainment coverage. And you know what? We're going to win!" That's Amy Wallace, who's leaving Los Angeles Magazine for the LAT, talking to the LA Weekly's Nikke Finke. Another career move Finke examines: "Why in the world would someone as successful in the entertainment industry as [Robert] Greenwald jeopardize everything he’s worked so hard to build - his career, his reputation, his finances - to dabble in the dirt-poor field of documentary-making?" Finke's is a fine backgrounder on Greenwald in case you were wondering yourself about the guy behind Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraqi War (Unconstitutional, a look at the post-9/11 demolition of our basic rights, is next), and now, of course, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. His "half-joking" answer to Finke's question, by the way: "By doing this, I've saved all this time in therapy."

The Hollywood Dodo Also in the LA Weekly:

Isaac Asimov's original story, "I, Robot," was a "rebellion against the Frankenstein plot," writes Edward Rothstein, but the movie seems confused on this point: "The movie wants to look backward toward Asimov and sideways toward Hollywood technothrillers. It promises a fresh embrace of technology while rounding up the usual technological suspects." Also in the New York Times: Virginia Heffernan interviews Sacha Baron Cohen.

Thomas Carl Wall's "The Time-Image: Deleuze, Cinema, and Perhaps Language" at Film-Philosophy won't thrill everyone, but the sections on Vertigo and Maborosi are worth dipping into, even for non-academics.

Steamboy "It's easy to forget that [Alfred] Molina is English." But Simon Hattenstone gets to hear him say things like, "Blimey!"

Online viewing tips. A healthy batch of new anime trailers, rounded up by Anime News Network. Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy, which'll be showing in Venice this year, looks pretty impressive.



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Posted by dwhudson at July 15, 2004 7:38 AM