Shorts, 8/27.

The National Film Theatre in London will be running a Jim Jarmusch retrospective throughout September, and the Guardian has made a smart move, asking Jonathan Rosenbaum for a few hundred relevant words. He begins with an assessment of what happened to the notion of independence in the 90s, thanks in no small part to Quentin Tarantino, a time when "the Mecca of 'independent' film-making became a film festival launched by a movie star and kept vital by Hollywood agents" and "flourishing as an 'independent' meant being distributed by Disney." Jarmusch, in the meantime, has stuck to his guns, retaining all his own negatives (with the single exception of Year of the Horse), while his work, intentionally or not, has shown "an increasing drift towards content" rather than style, and a more political sort of content to boot.

Also in the Guardian:

• Gina Thomas on Der Untergang.
• Every so often someone announces the return of the musical, and today, it's Emma Brockes. Whether or not she's right, she gets in some good snarky lines in her overview of the genre. There's a quiz, too.
• John Patterson watches The Best Man and Medium Cool and misses the days when American politics were "real."
• Laura Barton profiles Matthew Vaughn.

Werner Herzog's been busy. Wendy Mitchell's got a quote: "I just finished a film in Guyana, in South America, in the jungle. And just two days ago I returned from Alaska doing pre-production for a film in Alaska, which will begin early in September. There's another film that I have started editing. I struggle with how to cope with all the projects I'm amassing behind me, pushing me." There's a book on the horizon as well. Also at indieWIRE: Lisa Bear interviews Zhang Yimou.

David Poland looks ahead to Toronto and the fall season and makes his predictions. And via Movie City News, Cameron Crowe's preview of Elizabethtown. It's full of stars!

"Robert Redford was golden, in look and bankable substance, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) until at least Out of Africa (1985)." Not anymore, sighs David Thomson. "Apart from confronting the ordinary truths of ageing in the mirror... he must recognise the facts about his recent movies. It's not just my opinion that they're duds." Also in the Independent: Ryan Gilby meets Claire Danes.

Cinema Minima correspondent Wilfred Lobo passes along word that India's most expensive film yet, Anil Sharma's Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyou is due for release in November.

Matt Haber: "[W]e actually managed to scoop a copy of [Tina Fey's] Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill's first-act outline from the main fax machine before Hector, one of the senior mailroom guys, busted us."

Posted by dwhudson at August 27, 2004 7:30 AM