Shorts, 8/16.

Back in May, B Ruby Rich gave voice to a question that was on many minds at the time: "Given that The Battle of Algiers could be re-released... why isn't anyone releasing Three Kings?" Now, from Sharon Waxman at the New York Times, comes news that both a theatrical and DVD re-release are indeed planned for this fall, along with a new quick-n-cheap documentary David O Russell is putting together which will "look at both sides" of the current war in Iraq.

While we wait, Russell has given us other things to do. There is, for example, one of those faux sites so common now in promotional campaigns to explore, this one for I ♥ Huckabees, which pretends to be the official site for the Huckabees Corporation. Click on "Advertisements" to discover that there's "more to Spring that Spring cleaning!" And way down at the bottom, the fine print: "Disclaimer" takes to you the actual current official site, Fox Searchlight's. Meantime, via the Movie Blog, the trailer.

In the New Yorker, Philip Gourevitch tells the story behind Errol Morris's Real People ads for MoveOn PAC featuring Republicans who are switching their votes this year to Kerry:

Morris was summoned back to the Interrotron. He pointed rapidly at more photographs, ticking off professions: "Ex-marine, fund manager, medical transcriptionist, a professor at a business school who teaches M.B.A.s and talked about how ashamed he is by what an M.B.A. has produced in the White House." Morris stood back from the portrait board. "My Mt. Rushmore," he said.

Not only will Wong Kar Wai not have 2046 finished in time to close the Edinburgh International Film Festival (August 18 - 29) as originally planned, reports Charlotte Higgins, but the film may also not be ready for its general release in Hong Kong, scheduled for this fall. Also in the Guardian: Gary Younge on the hardly-surprising objections from some lesbians to Spike Lee's She Hate Me.

That 2046 link goes to MonkeyPeaches because, until an official site goes up that's a bit more interesting that the Japanese or French sites, MP has the most thorough and up-to-date coverage of the film. It is, overall, an excellent resource for anyone interested in films from Asia. But from the front page, scroll down to the August 14 entry to read how "MiramAxe" shut it down for a day.

Via Movie City News:

• Karan Johar's "10 commandments of acting," as told to Geety Sahgal of the Times of India.
• Claudia Eller in the Los Angeles Times, "Probing a Box-Office Crash": Thunderbirds.
• For the Independent, Bob Flynn talks to Alberto Granado, now 82, the man who made the trip with Che Guevara that drives The Motorcycle Diaries.

MCN's Ray Pride is surprised by his own reaction to The Village: "[W]here I found a cautionary parable against isolationism, other writers found The Village to be endorsing what Metro Weekly's Annalee Newitz called 'pure, uncut Bushiana.'"

The Copenhagen International Film Festival will feature a tribute to Abbas Kiarostami but it's primary focus will be on European films, reports indieWIRE's Brian Brooks.

Read German? A few American cultural wavelets are just now splashing over into Germany, and you may have already had enough of them... or not. And if not, Der Spiegel runs a long interview with Jim Jarmusch in which Alexander Osang asks him all about Coffee and Cigarettes and Rüdiger Sturm talks to Peter Biskind. But in my Buch, the real story of the day is that Hanna Schygulla will star in Fatih Akin's comedy Soul Kitchen (and that's the link since there's no byline on this item), which begins shooting in Hamburg early next year. In the meantime, Akin is at work on a documentary in Istanbul.

Online viewing tip. The trailer for Layer Cake.

Posted by dwhudson at August 16, 2004 7:15 AM