Shorts, 8/2.

Ann Barrow in Images: "Ironically, the cowboys or gunmen who act as forerunners to industrialization contribute to their own obsolesce. Villains are fought, evil is dispelled, and the cowboy/gunman rides back into the landscape as an honorable and heroic figure. Not so with Martin Ritt's Hud and John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy."

Charles Leary interviews Johnnie To for Offscreen.

Here's a list to browse and savor: The Top Overlooked Films of the 1990s, as selected and annotated by the Online Film Critics Society.

Another one: "Films Flickhead would watch anytime, anyplace!"

So Laurence Olivier has been digitally resurrected to play the heavy in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In the New York Times, Stuart Klawans examines the implications of virtual actors growing smarter, even if "only" artificially, and more autonomous: "What if a virtual actor that looks and sounds like Olivier, and has a temperament to match, gets into a dispute with a rival Oliver simulation that is competing for the same roles? What if the interests of both these cyber-actors conflict with those of the rights holders to the original Olivier's image?"

Also in the NYT:

• Roberta Smith on the claims being made for the influence of choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer.
• "Among sitcom writers - a notoriously surly, schadenfreude-prone lot - Arrested Development is being viewed as a kind of bellwether for the future of the genre." Ari Posner profiles the show's creator, Mitchell Hurwitz.
• Deborah Sontag tells the story behind Open Water.
• Lynn Hirschberg argues that Michael Mann "has, through his work, through his sense of style melded with character, created the dominant male aesthetic of the last 20 years."
• Nice conceit: "The Communists in The Manchurian Candidate have developed a diabolical method of mind control based on memory's emotional power. It is an ingenious method. It is a highly effective method. It is, in fact, the Method," writes Lee Siegel.
• Matthew Vaughn, who's produced two British hits on the cheap (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) has directed his first film, Layer Cake. Eric Pfanner can tell he's nervous.
• Though the UN has turned down Hitchcock, Sidney Pollack has received permission - from Kofi Annan no less - to shoot The Interpreter on the premises. Warren Hoge reports.
• Bernard Weinraub asks Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel what it's like seeing himself portrayed as a sort of irrepressible parody of the Hollywood agent on Entourage.
• Robert Pisano's executive director of the Screen Actors Guild and he's on the board over at Netflix. Conflict of interest? Some guild members things so, reports Sharon Waxman.

Sanjay Suri is underwhelmed by Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice. Also in Outlook India: Poornima Joshi reports that, despite a new liberal information and broadcasting minister, the Indian government is still censoring filmmakers for political content.

Heidi Martinuzzi interviews Takashi Shimizu for Film Threat.

"For an outsider, what is most striking about Los Angeles's pornographic hinterland is how normalised its abnormalities have become. Here, the ordinary (an actress reading her lines) is troubling, and the bizarre (people engaging in graphic acts of sex in front of others) simply mundane." Andrew Anthony meets the makers of American porn and takes measure of how the industry is coping with the recent HIV outbreak.

Also in the Observer and Guardian:

• With a quick primer, Steve Rose preps British readers for a wave of South Korean films headed to their theaters.
• Jeff Hudson asks Elmore Leonard what he thinks about the cinematic adaptations of his novels.
• Gaby Wood meets Gael García Bernal.
• "Watching her frolicking with her dancers, I'm reminded that Boy George once said she was a gay man trapped inside a woman's body. Right now, in the nicest possible sense, it looks as if the gay man has escaped." Barbara Ellen celebrates Madonna.
• John Patterson doesn't like the way Will Smith's career is going.
• And a poll: Who should replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond?

Via Movie City News, Peter Ross's thorough interview with Robbie Coltrane in the Sunday Herald and Ruth Stein's with Patrice Leconte in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Drudge is somehow convinced the White House doesn't want you to see Team America. Seems a little far-fetched, but Eugene Hernandez gathers the relevant links.

"A few small puffs for Harold and Kumar, one giant leap for Asian America." Neelanjana Banerjee for the Pacific News Service.

Is A Prairie Home Companion Robert Altman's next project? Via Darren Hughes.

Gary M Kramer asks John Greyson about his new one, Proteus: "Jack Lewis [co-writer/director] found the court transcript, thought the story of these two guys, their incarceration, their affair, and their execution would make an interesting feature. He asked, 'Do you want to make a tri-lingual, sodomitical, botanical, low-budget feature on location?'" Also in indieWIRE: Brian Brooks notes Brother to Brother's "Gay Fest Sweep" and Anthony Kaufman talks to DeMane Davis and Khari Streeter about Lift, out on DVD tomorrow.

The Chicago Underground Film Festival (August 18 - 24) has announced its lineup.

Matt Haber spots the cameos in Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate.

Online summer breeze. With Diary of a Star, Eduardo Navas resurrects entries from Andy Warhol's diaries, adds links and blogs right alongside in his own "meta archives." Via Net Art News.

Posted by dwhudson at August 2, 2004 10:00 AM