Shorts, 9/10.

Wiley Wiggins is furious, and rightfully so. In its pathetic "Ultimate Party Collection," Universal is reissuing Dazed and Confused and Fast Times at Ridgemont High together as some sort of stoner double feature. Not only does this make about as much sense as, say, marketing The Birds to National Geographic subscribers, Wiley points out that their pitch is also factually wrong: "Rick Linklater is refusing to do audio commentary, so they should probably stop touting it as a feature, much less a 'hilarious' one." Plus, they've evidently missed at least a couple of golden opportunities Wiley has definitely sparked my own interest in seeing some day.

Meanwhile, the cinetrix passes along news that Linklater will be directing the remake of The Bad News Bears: "Yes, School of Rock made money and had Linklater directing misfit kids, but Dazed and Confused just got the seventies."

Heather Havrilesky at Alternet on the walking puzzle that is Vincent Gallo: "Where do you start with such a tangled mess of a human being?" Opportunity enough to point to our own recent entry at the main site, filmmaker Caveh Zahedi's interview with Gallo.

For the Nation, John Sayles reviews the Republican National Convention, paying particular attention to the musical numbers, the role of the extras (delegates) and casting in general: "Jesus, or His relative absence, was notable in the performances. His name gets a workout in fundamentalist speech, in gospel and contemporary Christian music, but though God the Father was often invoked (this political season has been a bonanza for imams at the podium), the Son was scarce."

Plasticians are discussing John H Brown's "Is the US High Noon Over? Reflections on the Declining Global Influence of American Popular Culture" at Cultural Commons. The piece is short, but the discussion is long. Via Cinema Minima.

Edward Wyatt reports in the New York Times that the New York Times has denied Michael Moore permission to reprint an article by the New York Times about the New York Times. Seriously, though, it does seem like an odd decision. "From the Editors: The Times and Iraq," which ran back in May, was an all too rare and in many ways admirable move by a major paper, an admission, more or less, that it had been unwittingly used by the Bush administration to justify the unjustifiable. The piece would have made a fine contribution to The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader, though it's also somewhat understandable that the editors are wary of lending the NYT name to propaganda again. The difference, of course, is that Moore's intentions are an open book.

Also in the NYT:

• Virginia Heffernan on IFC's new reality show: "If there's a filmmaker in your life, one with maxed-out credit cards and a standing need for you to hold booms for him, this is not the series for you. You've already seen enough of the off-camera hysteria and mind-boggling logistics. For everyone else, there's Film School." More from Brandon Judell at indieWIRE.
• Richard Sandomir reports on a dispute between Major League Baseball and ESPN over the latter's docudrama, Hustle, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Speaking of whom, Ben Slater has a brief follow-up to his (hopefully) ongoing story of the making of Saint Jack.
• Michiko Kakutani reviews Nora Johnson's Coast to Coast: A Family Romance, a memoir of "her screenwriter father's world in Hollywood and her mother's bohemian world in New York."
• And it's Friday, of course, so there's a fresh round of reviews.

Roger Avary sends word from the L'Etrange Festival in Paris.

For indieWIRE, Wendy Mitchell looks back at Montreal's World Film Festival.

In the Guardian:

• Never mind the polidocs; Molly Haskell wonders what political messages are slipping under the radar in mainstream releases.
• "'Was that all right for interpretation?' he enquires of the director. An actor's life in six words and my favourite line outside of King Lear." A fun on-the-set diary from Tom Courtenay.
• Audrey Gillan belts out the theme tune to Hawaii Five-O, announcing that, inevitably, a movie is on the way. Sanjiv Bhattacharya is assigned the enviable task of meeting and profiling Zhang Ziyi.
• Sean Clarke interviews Josh Hartnett.
• Legendary animator Frank Thomas, 1912 - 2004.

Spike Lee's never been on a film festival jury before, but there he is, in Venice, where the awards are to be announced tomorrow. He writes about the experience for the Independent and seems somewhat charmingly naive about what all the job would entail. Also, two interviews: Leslie Felperin with Tom Hanks and Lee Marshall with Mira Nair.

Via Movie City News:

• The first deluge of reviews from Toronto.
• Ian Mohr reviews the summer for indies in the Hollywood Reporter. Performances by "indie labels" are broken down in nine sidebars, too.
• To read the Globe and Mail's Johanna Schneller describe it, I ♥ Huckabees sounds like it's going to be something else. She meets David O Russell.

Doug Cummings on Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, "a film that richly deserves its place among the filmmaker's greatest works."

Nice take on The Five Obstructions from Jeff Economy in Chronogram: "It's reminiscent of the story about Allen Ginsberg giving Thelonious Monk some psilocybin mushrooms.  When Ginsberg returned a few days later to check on him, fully expecting the musician's mind to be well and truly blown, Monk peered out through a crack in the door and simply said, 'Got anything stronger?'" Jonathan Rosenbaum's on the film as a whole: "In short, it's amusing only if you agree not to think very much about it."

The Cinecultist: "Mmmm, yummy. Gael García Bernal is on the cover of this week's Time Out New York." She pulls a tasty quote from the story.

Look back at John and Mary with Filmbrain.

Posted by dwhudson at September 10, 2004 1:02 PM