Shorts, 8/12.

Scott Foundas delves into "a web of movie making, unmaking and remaking so infernally tangled as to give new meaning to the phrase 'development hell.'" Yes, with Exorcist: The Beginning opening August 20, it's time once again to tell the backstory. But this retelling is different. Foundas has actually seen Paul Schrader's original film, the one deemed not gory enough by Morgan Creek execs before they dumped him and hired Renny Harlin. Which is why this bit is worth quoting at length:

Rather than worshipfully recalling the claustrophobic, kitchen-sink realism of the 1973 film, Schrader and [screenwriter Caleb] Carr seemed actively engaged in subverting, as best they could, its iconography. Shot by no less a visual poet than Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, One From the Heart and virtually everything by Bertolucci), the film is visually wide-open, with a dramatic sense of landscape and a marvelous attention to the subtlest tricks of light. Moreover, this Beginning views demonic possession less as a singular occurrence - the terrors visited upon an innocent young victim - than as a contagion born in the hearts of men, able to cross oceans of time and space, infecting entire communities in its wake. It is, by Schrader and Carr’s own admission, an internalized piece of psychological (as opposed to visceral) horror. It’s also, not incidentally, an epistemological study of faith, set against a world that gives even the righteous many reasons to question their beliefs. In short, just the sort of brooding, introspective piece you might expect from Schrader (who was raised as a strict Calvinist and who has explored similar themes in films from Hardcore to Affliction) and Carr (who, though best known for his novels, has also written extensively about military history, global terrorism and other Zeitgeist matters), but which Morgan Creek would later claim was exactly what it hadn’t asked for.

But though he clearly favors this version - as does William Peter Blatty, evidently - Foundas is fair, talking to all the major players, including Morgan Creek co-founder James Robinson. While Schrader's attitude regarding the fate of his version - a possible release on DVD at best - is almost Zen-like, Carr seems furious at everybody: "I have seen most of the horrible shit that people can do to each other at very close range. Yet I am still stunned by Hollywood people's capacity to be dishonest. It’s just amazing."

Also in the LA Weekly:

• Nikki Finke: "The New York Times is mulling yet more hires to expand its global infotainment coverage in that increasingly ridiculous mano a mano battle for show-biz dominance with the Los Angeles Times." Why? "Newspapers like the NYT and LAT are desperate for young eyeballs, and entertainment crap attracts them like sharks to chum."
• David Chute: "The designation 'yakuza horror theater,' which Miike has himself applied to his new film, Gozu, seems designed to cover a multitude of whims. Which is good, because he has a lot of them."
• FX Feeney: "As Gross told a recent audience at the LA Film Festival, We Don't Live Here Anymore was originally written in the 1970s. That figures, in the best sense: It is worthy of comparison to the lifelike, character-rich films we cherish from that era, and is certainly one of the finest films to come out this year."

Time to catch up with Flak:

• Stephen Himes: "Jonathan Demme's remake of the John Frankenheimer classic The Manchurian Candidate, opening on the heels of the Kerry convention, seems like an allegory for the candidate himself. It's also areminder that to many liberals, [Kerry's] not quite one of us."
• Martin Scribbs: "This election year, cinema has been overrun by insincere communities headed by dissemblers-in-chief - not just Fahrenheit 9/11 but The Terminal, Saved! and M Night Shyamalan's new thriller, The Village.
• And both have ideas about Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Himes: The film "embraces the liberties wacky gross-out comedies afford, creating some really damn funny and effective absurdist portraits of an America in which racism is still a driving force." Scribbs: It also "clears the way for a long-overdue national discussion on burger ethnicity."
• But how could we have missed this a while back: Stephen Himes probes deep, deep, deeper into what really ticks Christopher Hitchens off about Michael Moore. Anyone who still doubts that Hitchens is unravelling at the seams is heartily encouraged to read this one, but at the same time: "[T]he left must break ranks with pseudo-pacifists such as Moore."

Wiley Wiggins has a few bones to pick with an article at the Star Wars promoting the upcoming vamped-up DVD release of THX-1138. The gist: "If Lucas is so convinced that his Space Opera has attracted new fans to 'hard' SF, then why not let them see THX without all the self-conscious candy-coating? Who knows, they might like it. I did."

Wiley also points to an entry at things magazine on S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the video game: "Does it have anything to do with Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker? (more posters). Most definitely." Things explains.

Ok, how about a Fight Club video game? Might work. Not the one Vivendi Universal's come up with, though, scoffs drew.

"With bloody images of Muslims and Westerners battling in Iraq and elsewhere on the nightly news, it may seem like odd timing to unveil a big-budget Hollywood epic depicting the ferocious fight between Christians and Muslims over Jerusalem in the Crusade of the 12th century." Eh-yep. Sharon Waxman reports that the New York Times has handed the screenplay for Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven to five "religious scholars and interfaith activists," some of whom are worried or offended while at least one of the quoted isn't. There isn't complete agreement on the film's historical accuracy, either. Waxman wraps with a quote from Christy Lohr of the Multifaith Ministries Education Consortium: "I think its going to cause a firestorm of criticism and free publicity in the op-ed pages... I imagine that's part of the appeal for Hollywood... It is cynical, but I think they enjoy stirring up a hornets' nest."

Also in the NYT:

• Miracle Boys, a six-part mini-series about three orphaned brothers in Harlem, was written by Tonya Lewis Lee and features a roster of directors that includes her husband, Spike, as well as Ernest R Dickerson, LeVar Burton and Bill Duke. "It is one of the few television dramas for younger teenagers that has an almost all-black cast, a rare attempt, the producers say, to deal directly with the gritty realities of working-class African-American teenage lives," writes Dinitia Smith.
• Virginia Heffernan on Death in Gaza: "It must have been agonizing to convert the film about children that [James] Miller thought he was making into a movie about his death."
• Bernard Weinraub on troubles in The West Wing.

The Movie Blog points to a pair of omnibus film-related bits: For the Korea Times, Kim Tae-jong talks to Park Chan-wook about his 30-minute contribution to Three, Monster (the other two contributors are Fruit Chan and Takashi Miike); and Eros, three films, one each by Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni and Wong Kar Wai, now has a new site with pix (scroll down, pick a title and go).

While Charles Taylor contemplates "rootlessness," his fellow Salon reviewer, Stephanie Zacharek considers another trend: "The past few months alone have given us three movies riffing on the Cinderella theme, stories about girls striving to channel their inner princess." And they would be The Prince and Me, A Cinderella Story and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. The problem with all three, she writes, "is not that they encourage unrealistically high romantic expectations in girls, but that they're barely romantic at all. Instead, even beneath their frothy, seemingly fun surfaces, there's something numbingly instructive about them."

Brian Flemming: "It's not only the obligation of independent filmmakers to tell forbidden stories, I believe, but it's also to their great advantage."

Sam Adams in the Philadelphia City Paper: "What makes 'Five Films' so consistently fascinating is the sense that Christo's fantastic creations are only part of the story."

Matt Clayfield writes an open letter to Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Jennifer Maerz wraps Seattle's Fucking Fabulous Film Festival. Also in the Stranger, Brad Steinbacher is underwhelmed by Collateral.

Sofia Coppola is writing and will direct Marie-Antoinette, reports Liza Foreman for Reuters. Kirsten Dunst will say, "Let them eat cake" (or maybe she won't), and Jason Schwartzman will play Louis XVI.

An "eclectic" range of movies from Thailand is about to hit US theaters. Anthony Kaufman asks around and discovers that the wavelet is pretty much accidental: "'I don't think there's any concerted business effort from the Thai film industry behind this sudden flurry of Thai films on US screens,' explains Chuck Stephens, a Bangkok-based film critic who has recently provided English-language subtitles for a variety of new Thai films. 'Frankly, I doubt there's a single Thai film company who'd have a clue as to where to begin to engineer such a feat. What it is, I think, is a mixture of coincidental timing.'

Also at indieWIRE, lots of festival news:Wendy Mitchell looks ahead to the Montreal World Film Festival (August 26 - September 6) and Sandra Ogle surveys the winners at NYC's Urbanworld Film Festival, which wrapped on Sunday, and the line-up for the Sarajevo Film Festival (August 20 - 28).

Beginning September 10, Matt Dentler will be hosting SXSW Presents on Austin's PBS affiliate KLRU.

Aaron Dobbs and Lily Oei interview editor and novelist Sean Desmond for the Gothamist. And the relevance here? Aaron explains: "Remember that guy Stephen Gaghan who seemed to come out of nowhere (although he had been writing for TV) to win an Oscar for his Traffic screenplay? Well that Oscar earned him the right to direct something, and he took Sean's book, switched some minor things around (like changing the protagonist from a guy to Katie Holmes) and called it Abandon."

Online viewing tip. Bienvenido Cruz's video for Circlesquare's "Non-Revival Alarm." Via videos.antville.org.

Posted by dwhudson at August 12, 2004 2:20 PM