Shorts, 9/16.

Slate' Chris Suellentrop has seen Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry and sorts through its arguments, measuring them against those of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

And Bryan Curtis checked out the American Film Renaissance fest, "Sundance for Republicans," in Dallas this past weekend: "Conservative filmmakers are a wee bit obsessed with [Michael] Moore."

Michell Goldberg was in Dallas, too, and her piece for Salon not only covers more ground, it dives far deeper as well:

Many people on the coasts... tend to make movies and write articles and produce albums as if their fellow citizens inhabited the same reality that they do. But there is another world in America, a through-the-looking-glass universe in which conservative Christians, despite dominating all the branches of government, feel persecuted by the state, in which gun control is seen as the natural precursor to genocide and Bill Clinton is suspected of covering up Iraqi responsibility for the Oklahoma City bombings. Residents of this febrile realm believe they're the majority and that sinister, cringing liberals are denying them their cultural due. Convinced that the film industry is conspiring against them, they want to create a cornfed Hollywood of their very own, from the grassroots up.

This is also the America that prefers Leno over Letterman, but Nikke Finke has discovered that Middle America's favorite late night talk show host just might be a closet liberal: "He believes 'the wool was pulled over our eyes' with the Iraq war. He thinks the White House began using terrorism 'as a crutch' after 9/11. He feels that during the campaign Kerry should 'make Bush look as stupid as possible.'" Not exactly flaming, but there you go. Cinemocracy takes a closer look at Leno's politics.

Also in the LA Weekly:

• Dave White tries to figure out the staying power of Gloomy Sunday in LA (third item).
• Ella Taylor on Head in the Clouds and Zelary, "[t]wo new World War II dramas from Sony Pictures Classics, each in its way a love story, [pointing] to the chasm between European- and Hollywood-generated images of what it means to live and act under fire."
• Christine McKenna on a new six-CD set, Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware, which "will come as a revelation to anyone who knows Bruce primarily through Bob Fosse's 1975 film, Lenny."

Back to Salon: If you think there's something fishy about What the Bleep Do We Know!?, John Gorenfeld thinks you're right. The doc could "easily be interpreted as a full-blown infomercial for Ramtha," a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit supposedly being channeled by one of the doc's talking heads, Judy "JZ" Knight. And Stephanie Zacharek reviews Goodbye, Dragon Inn, "a paean to the togetherness of isolation among moviegoers."

Ben Child scans the line-up for the London Film Festival (October 20 - November 4). Also in the Guardian, Stuart Jeffries meets Marina de Van: "If you ask her 'Are you all right?' she will reply 'I know why you're asking that. Yes, there's nothing wrong with me. You're thinking about the character in the film, not me. Esther eats herself, not me.'"

Toronto round-up:

• Another page in AO Scott's notebook: "As it winds on, the festival, which began last Thursday and ends on Saturday, feels both utterly chaotic and at the same time governed by some strange, complex principle of symmetry... Someone a lot smarter than I am (and maybe a little less sane) might be able to compose a chart mapping out the more esoteric relations among the festival selections, but let me at least contribute some provisional data."

• Leonard Klady on the diminishing prospects for acquisitions: "Neither the films nor the public have changed radically, it's the marketplace that's gotten smaller and less adventurous." And once again, that Movie City News Toronto page.

• At indieWIRE: Eugene Hernandez parties down; Peter Brunette reviews Kinsey, "very solid entertainment indeed."

• Tom Hall: "I have literally seen over 22 films since the week began, many of them excellent, but no film has moved me as powerfully as Rois et Reine."

• J Robert Parks on House of Flying Daggers, Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron, A Hole in My Heart, Earth and Ashes and: "Like the 2003 Toronto fest, my Holy-Grail experience came during the fifth screening of a five-screening day. Last year, it was Shara. This year it was two non-narrative films in the Wavelength series: Peter Hutton's Skagafjördur and Anthony McCall's Line Describing a Cone." Then, Day 4: Darwin's Nightmare, Schizo, Cinévardaphoto and On the Outs.

The Unofficial Milk Plus Canon: 1980 - 1984.

For Alternet, Nora Lawrence offers an overview of RESFEST, which "fuses film festival and high-tech trade show."

In the Philadelphia City Paper, Juliet Fletcher wonders what could be done to attract more filmmaking to her city.

Shawn Badgley previews Cinematexas 9 for the Austin Chronicle.

If you're in LA this weekend, or more specifically, on Saturday at around 6 pm, you'll want to drop by CineFile where Zak Penn and Werner Herzog will be on hand to talk about Incident at Loch Ness.

Via the e-flux newsletter comes word of the "WAR! Protest in America, 1965 - 2004" film series at the Whitney.

Two most amusing entries at low culture: Matt: "Designing movie posters isn't easy." And jp on "this fall's round of catchy advertising taglines."

Posted by dwhudson at September 16, 2004 7:21 AM