Shorts, 8/20.

Coming Soon! passes along word from Columbia that its adaptation of Arthur Golden's novel Memoirs of a Geisha, to be directed by Rob Marshall, has its principle roles cast. And how: Ken Watanabe will play "The Chairman"; Zhang Ziyi, Sayuri; Michelle Yeoh, Mameha; Gong Li, Hatsumomo; Koji Yakusho, Nobu; and Youki Kudoh, Pumpkin.

The waning of the Hong Kong film scene has been long and sad and, after a retelling of the denoument at Alternet, Andrew Lam looks into what might be taking its place: Hollywood, of course, but also opera.

That said, Jackie Chan has made a new action thriller in Hong Kong and, via the Movie Blog, here's the site: New Police Story.

The Movie Blog's "Bubba" gets 15 minutes with Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to talk about Shaun of the Dead.

In a comment, Ted points to an item many are refusing to take at face value, and for a whole ream of commonsensical reasons: "QT's Diary." Hm-hm.

"Hints of the Citizens United film project first emerged in early July, when [David] Bossie warned what he and his organization would do if the Federal Election Commission dismissed their Fahrenheit 9/11 complaint. 'Citizens United becomes a documentary factory,' he told the New York Post. 'We'll make documentaries and we'll show ads for them. I'm in the production business ... I can put together a documentary very, very quickly.'" And so they he has, reports Joe Conason in Salon. The Big Picture (no site yet, far as I can tell) stars George W Bush and evidently aims to be a sort of anti-Fahrenheit 9/11.

Caryn James's wide-ranging survey of politically topical films and plays (from Michael Moore and Robert Greenwald to Sally Potter, from AR Gurney to Aristophanes) singles out two works destined to resonate beyond November 2: Chris Cooper's "performance and Mr. Sayles's exhilarating script and direction make Silver City (opening next month) something rare among the dozens of politically themed works on screen and on stage: a Bush-bashing work that is more than Bush-bashing."

And: "The timidity of television at such a volatile political moment would be amazing, too, if it weren't so predictable. The once-and-future exception is Robert Altman and Garry Trudeau's mini-series, Tanner '88, the brilliant mock documentary that put a fictional presidential candidate, Jack Tanner (Michael Murphy), in the midst of the real 1988 Democratic primaries. Tanner holds up remarkably well today, for the same reason Silver City is likely to hold up tomorrow. It goes beyond a political moment to capture what's behind it." Note: Criterion releases Tanner '88 on DVD in October.

I won't make a habit of this, but what the hell: Reviews in today's New York Times:

• AO Scott on Bright Young Things, Mean Creek and Nicotina.
• Stephen Holden on End of the Century, Without a Paddle and It's Easier for a Camel... (more from Erica Abeel at indieWIRE).
• Manohla Dargis on Rosenstrasse and Almost Peaceful.
• Dave Kehr on Uncovered: The War on Iraq and Benji: Off the Leash!.

Also: Richard Severo remembers Elmer Bernstein; and John Rockwell: "A repressive, judgmental streak in Western culture, from Plato to the Inquisition to the Puritans to hard-core Marxists to the political correctness of today, remains stubbornly suspicious of beauty. Moralists fear that beautiful church music can distract from the worship of God, that beautiful painting can hide cruel social realities, that beautiful films can sugarcoat contemporary cruelty." But he loved Girl With a Pearl Earring anyway.

"We all know how the tragic story of Hamburg Cell will end, but the question that Channel 4's new film tries to answer is: how did the 9/11 plot first take shape?" Coming from the author of Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, Peter Bergen's take is especially interesting, though he watches the film more as a fact-checker than as a critic.

Also in the Guardian:

• Mark King rounds up several examples of castings that would have radically changed well over a dozen big-time movies: Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly? Lance Henriksen as the Terminator? Stuart Townsend as Aragorn? Molly Ringwald as... Molly?
• Geoffrey Macnab interviews Ken Loach. Choice bits: "You can actually write about American imperialism if you get the chance to review Black Hawk Down. The films Hollywood make give us a way of speaking about their role in the world." And: "A film or a television programme can contribute to a climate of opinion. That's all you can do: add that one voice to a general discussion about a particular subject."
• McDonald's is running an unusual anti-Super Size Me ad campaign in the UK, reports Vikram Dodd.
• David Mamet: "Real film-makers have to listen to the lessons of their ass."
• Pascal Wise on Crime Story.
• Leigh Singer on Blake's Junction 7.
• Leo Benedictus points to Ready Teddy Death.
• Obits: Michael Freedland on Elmer Bernstein and Christopher Reed on photographer Carl Mydans.

Stephanie Bunbury profiles Jim Jarmusch for the Age.

For the Independent, Tiffany Rose interviews Sigourney Weaver: "There's an Alien vs Predator movie out now, which is something I'm quite happy not to be in, and it's the reason I wanted my character to die in the first place. I really don't know much about the Predator except that it looks like a hedgehog."

William Gibson once wrote a screenplay for Alien 3? You probably already knew that; I didn't. UGO's Justin Clark reviews the script along with two others that went unproduced, one by David Twohy and the other by Walter Hill and David Giler Via CS Daily.

Patrick Mullin in the Globe and Mail:

For most people, a night at the movies has come to mean the suburban megaplex, where everything but the screen itself is supersized. For those in the know, however, the drive-ins still lighting up the night across Canada, from the Prairie Dog Drive-In in Saskatchewan to the Mustang Drive-in in Ontario, are the only way to go, and are an ideal way to savour the last weeks of summer.

By the way.

At Movie City News, David Poland does the final math on the summer of 2004.

Jeffrey Wells has moved his ongoing "Hollywood Elsewhere" column to its own site and in his current piece, he lists twenty films that ought to be on DVD but aren't yet. "It's a good one," writes Vince Keenan, "although considering that The Battle of Algiers will be out later this year, I'd pull that in favor of The Friends of Eddie Coyle."

FAZ Weekly: "Another face has been added to Germany's directors' elite. Ayse Polat was awarded the Silver Leopard at the International Film Festival in Locarno, Italy [more from Mark Salisbury in Premiere and Eugene Hernandez in indieWIRE], for her second movie En garde, which will run in Germany from Oct. 28."

The Cinecultist caught the Blackout Festival in NYC last Friday.

Online viewing tip. Trailers for just a few of the gadzillion movies Nigerians have been churning out, the ones you've read so much about. Via Bitter Cinema (and welcome back).

Posted by dwhudson at August 20, 2004 12:51 PM