Shorts, 10/8.

In response to the entry on Elfriede Jelinek winning the Nobel for Literature, Matt Clayfield pointed to a discussion on the a_film_by list and it's there that Kevin Lee refers to a game he dreamed up not all that long ago: Suppose there were a Nobel Prize in Cinema? Manna for list-mongers - and aren't we all?

By the way, the feuilletons of every Austrian, Swiss and German paper of note naturally lead with reactions to the news of Jelinek's award. For those who read German, today's Perlentaucher is a motherlode of Jelinek-related essays, reviews and interviews.

If you're going to talk Jesus with David O Russell, as Christianity Today's Jeffrey Overstreet has, chance are, you'll end up with Mark Wahlberg on the phone. Via Metaphilm.

Jonathan Rosenbaum introduces the Chicago Reader's thorough coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival (October 7 through 21) :

Fortunately, the desire in this country to understand others is intense. One of the easiest ways to learn about foreign cultures is to watch their movies, and over the next two weeks the Chicago International Film Festival - one of the oldest festivals in North America, now celebrating its 40th anniversary - is offering films from more than 40 countries. With 119 programs, including 14 revivals, this is a rare opportunity to learn more about how the world works.

For Flickerings, Mike Hertenstein is also covering the fest and doing a bang-up job of it, too. That's via Doug Cummings, who has high praise for Criterion's edition of The Battle of Algiers.

"Gavin Smith, Richard Pena, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center are helping to make this one of the best autumns of my adult life." The New York Film Festival is definitely doing it for Michael Tully. Meanwhile, indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez has been snapping photos. Also at iW: Wendy Mitchell interviews Primer director Shane Carruth - so, too, does Scott Macaulay for Filmmaker - and Brian Brooks looks ahead to the Austin Film Festival.

More from NYFF at Milk Plus.

One of the most talked about (and bid on) films in Toronto was My Summer of Love, fresh off a win in Edinburgh. Andrew Pulver interviews the director, Pawel Pawlikowski: "I dread to be compared to all these directors who have a lot of spontaneous emoting and swearing in their films - that is death, it's a cul-de-sac, it doesn't lift the material at all. It's just a cliched reproduction of what we think is normal behaviour."

Also in the Guardian:

• Emma Brockes asks Imelda Staunton about, among other things, working with Mike Leigh: "We start at 8am, we finish at 8 o'clock at night. I mean, you don't want to dither around him."
• "To be a feminist film critic in the 1970s was to be a divided soul." Molly Haskell recalls "personal, violent, profane, difficult, and subversive movies" with next to nothing in them for women.
• "Forget Hector's House and Paddington Bear, the Wombles and Postman Pat. At its peak, around eight million viewers - children and adults - were glued to the Magic Roundabout, shown originally in the five-minute slot before the early evening news on BBC1." And now, reports, Kim Willsher it's going to be a feature film.

"One thing you have to hand the 2004 campaign: it's made for some really good TV." The latest thrill for Slate's Dana Stevens blogger of the small screen is the TCM series, "Party Politics and the Movies," launched last night by John Edwards's introduction to one of his favorite films, Dr. Strangelove. As Stevens reminds us, it's basically "the story of a few deluded powermongers who destroy the world because they can't admit they're wrong."

Also in Slate:

• Brendon I Koerner asks if Michael Moore is breaking the law by exchanging underwear for promises to vote.
• William Saletan and Jacob Weisburg discuss Kerry's new round of ads. Saletan thinks Kerry's finally honed in on an effective line of attack. Weisburg's not so sure.
• David Edelstein: "Probably after the 5,000th arty home-movie montage purporting to tell the story of someone's lousy childhood, I'll rue the day I called Tarnation a masterpiece. But a masterpiece it is, of a mind-bending modern sort." Robert Davis, though - and not in Slate - takes a more cautious stance.

Boldtype laces a review of Jonathan Torgovnik's Bollywood Dreams with half a dozen links.

Pilot Chicago: Experimental Media for Feminist Trespass.

Jennifer Rodger asks John Appel to select an example of a good scene in a doc and a bad one. The good one comes from Grey Gardens; the bad, from Bowling for Columbine.

Also in the Independent:

• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow director Kerry Conran picks his "ten best adventure films."
• Kaleem Aftab has a long talk with Bride and Prejudice director Gurinder Chadha, who emphasizes that her own experiences as a British Asian differ quite a bit from those of, say, Hanif Kureishi and Ayub Khan Din. Oh, and Anthony Quinn's take on the movie: "As a cross-cultural update it's an honourable effort, but rather less than the booming entertainment it wants to be."
• Charlotte O'Sullivan wonders why Vera Drake is such a unique case, why we see so few films address the issue of abortion head-on: "One of the problems, perhaps, is that liberals, just as much as conservatives, have trouble accepting women (even temporarily) as non-maternal."

New websites for new films from top-notch Asian directors? Keep an eye on Twitch. The latest finds: Kim Ki-duk's 3 Iron and Johnnie To's Yesterday Once More.

Online viewing tip #1. Andy Serkis gives a tour of the galley of the ship in King Kong. Via Movie City News.

Online viewing tip #2. "How Do You Run a Convention on a Record of Failure?" Via Greg Allen.

Posted by dwhudson at October 8, 2004 1:58 PM