Sunday shorts.

"Bashing the British film industry has long been a national pastime, along with moaning about the weather and worrying about the sex lives of politicians," writes Mark Kermode, introducing a big splashy feature in the Observer. "Yet unlikely as it may seem, there is currently an unfashionably buoyant air about contemporary British film-making - if not within the industry, then at least as far as audiences are concerned." Then it's on to mini-profiles of 25 prominent figures in British film - actors, directors, producers - and a brief round-up of some of the best British movies now showing or coming soon.

Also in the Observer:

• Kevin Spacey tells Matt Wolf why he was compelled to make Beyond the Sea. The project had bounced around a bit before finding Spacey; Wendy Leigh tells the story of the story.
• A man claiming to be AJ Quinnell, the up-to-now unidentified writer whose novel is the basis of Man on Fire, has approached David Smith to tell his story.
• Harriet Lane hears tidbits of wisdom from Michael Palin.

Next door at the Guardian, John Robinson on the Holy Grail of rock movies, screening in London in early December:

In the 32 years since it was made, Cocksucker Blues has come to occupy a unique cultural place. In Don DeLillo's Underworld, a character speaks of loving "the washed blue light of the film ... corruptive and ruinous, a beautiful tunnel blue". In rock legend, it occupies a place as a record of the kind of bacchanalian excess - nodding out backstage, oral sex on private jets - that one has come to imagine the rock star demands as his right. In troublesome fact, it has continued to be an object of contention between Robert Frank and its subjects, the Rolling Stones. Even today, with a huge show of Frank's photography and a programme of his film work about to open at Tate Modern, the film is subject to stringent (and private) exhibition restrictions.

Perhaps to balance the blow John Patterson's column arguing that Martin Scorsese's movies in the last few years have been "pretty good, but pretty good is a lot less than I expect from Scorsese," the Guardian also runs an extract from Scorsese on Scorsese: "People in America were confused by The King of Comedy and saw Bob as some kind of mannequin. But I felt it was De Niro's best performance ever. The King of Comedy was right on the edge for us; we couldn't go any further at that time."

Wiley Wiggins points to the AP's account of "the sad sacks back in Huntsville who are trying to cash in eleven years later over vaguely having something to do with a movie." Dazed and Confused, they claim, is still making their lives miserable. The saddest line is probably this one: "The suit was filed in New Mexico because it has a longer statute of limitations than other states for claims of defamation and false light, attorneys said."

Record producer James Barber offers his take on Dig!, "probably the best portrait we'll get of the post-Nirvana epoch, when record companies championed exactly the kind of underground bands they had so studiously avoided in the 70s and 80s." Also in Slate: David Edelstein on "Leigh's newest marathon of misery," Vera Drake.

George Fasel: "The Rehabilitation, Flourishing and Decline of Henri-Georges Clouzot (1947 - 77)."

"'I've said in negotiations: "How much will you pay me not to have to promote? I only want to charge you for my acting. And you know what, it won't be that expensive!" And they say, "Zero"' - which, presumably, is why [Billy] Crudup agreed to this profile." Jesse Green sympathizes, as anyone who's ever had the misfortune to have any part of a press junket would, but goes on writing. Who wouldn't?

Also in the New York Times:

• Fred Kaplan: "Strangelove is more than satire. In its own loopy way, the movie is a remarkably fact-based and specific guide to some of the oddest, most secretive chapters of the Cold War."
• Alexandra Jacobs profiles Topher Grace, who'll be making a stab at a new phase in his career by appearing this fall in Dylan Kidd's P.S. and Paul Weitz's In Good Company (evidently formerly known as Synergy).
• Casting director Felicia Fasano distills the chemistry of Richard Gere; the piece is more interesting than it sounds, by the way.
• Aleida Guevara remembers her father, Ernesto Che Guevara.
• Jonathan Kandell considers the life and impact of Jacques Derrida.

And recent NYFF reviews in the NYT:

• Stephen Holden on Bad Education ("a voluptuous experience that invites you to gorge on its beauty and vitality, although it has perhaps the darkest ending of any of the films by the Spanish writer and director"), Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue (documents "a jam that one musician remembers as a 'microhistory of jazz'"), Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson ("pointedly resonates with the present") and The 10th District Court: Moments of Trial ("might leave more of an impact if the same sort of thing weren't a glut on the American television market").
• AO Scott on House of Flying Daggers ("a gorgeous entertainment, a feast of blood, passion and silk brocade"; Dave Kehr, by the way, explains how the daggers fly) and The Holy Girl ("defies categorization, but I'm tempted to call it a miracle").
• Manohla Dargis on the Infernal Affairs trilogy ("an embarrassment of action-movie riches").

All well and good, but the cinetrix still misses Elvis Mitchell; but is grief giving way to hallucination? Just kidding, cine.

Phyrephox carries on posting NYFF reviews at Milk Plus.

For the Age, Tom Ryan gives a mixed review of Ingo Petzke's Phillip Noyce: Backroads to Hollywood. Via Movie City News, where Ray Pride has just turned in another round-up: Huckabees, Los Angeles Plays Itself, Going Upriver, Tying the Knot, Rick, The Yes Men, Gozu and Zelary.

But the main story at MCN today is, once again, the New York Times. A project has fallen apart: American Gangster was to have been directed by Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington was to have starred. Sharon Waxman wrote the story for the NYT, and since it's not at the site, David Poland has posted it as a PDF file and offers his critique: "[I]n many ways, a really solid piece of reporting... Except for one glaring breach of the 'report news, don't create news' rule.... I am speaking of the notion that this decision was somehow a reflection of General Electric's corporate influence over Universal since the merger."

J-Horror news from Todd at Twitch, where Canfield files a first report from the Chicago International Film Festival.

Tiffany Rose interviews Milla Jovovich for the Independent; Craig McLean profiles Romola Garai, an "avowedly over-earnest young woman whose says her ideal film role would be to portray proto-feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft."

Nicki Gostin interviews Annette Bening for Newsweek.

While the FBI tries to shut down Indymedia, the movie studios ask the Supreme Court to let them sue the pants off P2P networks. Stories from Slashdot, Indymedia and Reuters.

Filmmaker's Steve Gallagher points to a new journal: Flow: A Critical Forum on Television and Media Culture.

"Myths require a shared experience of the world and, often, overrated movies are those that generate a similar collective nervous energy, a sense that one must participate or miss the cultural conversation." For Katrina Onstad, writing in the National Post, Exhibit A would have to be Pulp Fiction. Via the Movie Blog.

Online viewing tip. Justin Hall's excellent report from the Tokyo Game Show 2004. And for dessert, "Robin in Wonderland."

Posted by dwhudson at October 10, 2004 7:34 AM