Shorts, 10/5.

Believe it or not, it was every bit as good as El or Viridiana or even Exterminating Angel... Jess Franco is an auteur, and something of a master - I can't deny it. Afterward we went to a dinner with Jess, Lina, the Cinematheque crowd, and the biographer/filmmaker dude. I sat there and watched Christophe, who is without question a greater authority on cinema than Quentin Tarantino, spoon the marrow from bones and eat it with rock salt while he discussed the most obscure and long dead Italian composers who, of course, Jess knew personally.... At one point [Christophe] leaned over to me and with a jab of the elbow said that the first porn film he ever saw, at 9, starred the old lady sitting at the other end of the table - Lina. He then scooped some more marrow into his mouth and laughed.

Also hanging in Paris these days is George Fasel, who's been adding astute and personal new entries to his Film Journal about every other day for a few weeks now.

Meanwhile, Greg Allen is still digging up more info on what's still the most exciting discovery in the City of Lights so far this year.

Doug Cummings views the first three films by Nuri Bilge Ceylon, "clearly part of the Bazin-Tarkovsky-Kiarostami aesthetic tradition, emphasizing everyday observation of people and nature in ways that challenge the viewer to ask immersive philosophical questions about the human condition. He's definitely a filmmaker to watch."

Alan Schroeder, author of Presidential Debates: 40 Years of High-Risk TV, has contributed another article to Cinemocracy, a "Viewers' Guide to the Presidential Debate Mini-Series":

At the end of the 2004 debates' first act the established story line is Bush on the ropes. Act Two ends either with a Bush comeback (something the media would love) or Bush in a tailspin (not as good a story, but still workable). Of course, there's always the possibility that the second debate might result in a draw. But that would be bad for the ratings.

Marcelle Parks looks back on the Oldenburg Festival (September 8 - 12). It's got a cute little trailer, "fiercely independent films from around the world" and an Andrzej Zulawski retrospective. Also in Kamera: Edward Lamberti reviews The Pocket Essential: Steven Spielberg by James Clarke, which "falls short on two fronts: it bafflingly puts the movies into unhelpful groups, and it fails to give Spielberg's achievements an honest once-over."

Night Watch, the surprise hit of the year in Russia, is based on a novel by Sergei Lukyanenko and Glubina, due in 2006, will be as well. Todd at Twitch has been following this one - after all, it'll feature Bruce Campbell, Rutger Hauer and Christopher Lee - even to the point of reading that novel, Labirint Otrazhenij.

Danielle Henbest talks to first-time director Jamie Johnson about the doc his friends and relatives didn't want him to make, Born Rich. Also in DVD Talk: das Monkey's huge and lavishly illustrated report from Dragon Con, last month's sci-fi and fantasy gathering in Atlanta.

Wendy Mitchell talks to Ondi Timoner; it took her seven years to make Dig!, but things'll be moving along a lot more quickly now, with three projects on the front burner and two more at the back. Also at indieWIRE: Brian Brooks looks ahead to the Mill Valley Film Festival (October 7 through 17).

Actually, those in the Bay Area will have a difficult choice on Thursday. Mill Valley or the first evening of a series at the Pacific Film Archive featuring the work of Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, who will be present to introduce the screenings toward the end of the month. PFA's Juliet Clark writes of his docs that they "advocate for change with sincerity and conviction, but not without wry humor and an eye for the absurd."

Two films get the review + interview treatment in this week's issue of the Village Voice (wherein Glenn Kenny also writes about "The Vanishing New York of Taxi Driver"). J Hoberman reviews Vera Drake (along with Moolaadé, and yes, he explains why) and Jessica Winter meets both Imelda Staunton and Mike Leigh; and Hoberman also reviews Tarnation ("the artist clutches his camera as though it were a life raft") while Ed Halter interviews Jonathan Caouette.

Also in the Voice: Dennis Lim on Primer (yet another reference to 2001!). The rest are "Tracking Shots":

• Joshua Land on Silent Waters and Around the Bend.
• Hoberman on Macunaíma.
• Lim on Andromedia.
• Winter on Stage Beauty and Taxi.
• Michael Atkinson on Heaven's Gate,
• Ben Kenigsberg on Ladder 49.
• Akiva Gottlieb on The Child I Never Was.
• And David Blaylock on Arna's Children.

For Matt Zoller Seitz, Vera Drake is "a fundamentally dishonest movie" and is clearly not alone in finding "Kubrickian air-whooshes and David Lynchian machine noises" in Primer. Meanwhile, fellow New York Press critic Armond White goes all mean and nasty on Jonathan Caouette and JR Taylor catches The Card Player: "Don't believe any hype that Argento's back on his game, but at least he's back to providing coherent storylines and cool visuals."

"We were not there for their freedom, we were not there for WMD. We had no idea what we were fighting for anymore." The Guardian runs an extract from Will They Ever Trust Us Again? Letters from the Warzone to Michael Moore.

Also in the paper:

• "'We blow Janeane Garofalo's head clean off, [but for the MPAA] it's all about the positions of the dolls having sex,' [Trey] Parker said. 'It's not funny - it's tragic.'" A report on Parker and Matt Stone's struggle to avoid the "box office kiss of death NC-17 rating" for Team America: World Police.
• Tim Pulleine remembers Janet Leigh.
• Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice premieres.

For the Independent, Jonathan Romney interviews Shane Meadows, director of four features, a mini-feature and around 70 shorts: "Now Meadows has gone back to basics for Dead Man's Shoes, a gritty, even grubby, vendetta thriller made for under £1m, and off-the-cuff from the start." And David Thomson advises: Enjoy the re-release of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and once you've "relished" it, do seek out the early films of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Plus: The real Calamity Jane.

Online viewing tip #1. Via Steve Gallagher at Filmmaker, Michel and Olivier Gondry's video for Lacquer's "Behind."

Online viewing tip #2. Why the Project for the New American Century hasn't received more attention in the mainstream press is beyond me (here, by the way, is a site dedicated to analyzing it), but Chuck Olsen points to a remarkable animated short, "What Barry Says," that ought to make any viewer curious to learn more. After a bit of poking around, I see that it won the "Best Animation" award at the Brooklyn International Film Festival this year and that the short was made by Simon Robson of knife party (where you can see his showreel). Though narrator Barry McNamara pushes a button or two too many in making his otherwise spot-on case, the concept, design and execution of "What Barry Says" are just extraordinary.

Posted by dwhudson at October 5, 2004 3:55 PM