Shorts, 11/4.

So, anyway. Movies.

No, wait. Forgive just one short note, which I'll address to those of us still recovering from an almost inexplicably visceral shock, whose heads were perfectly aware that the election could have gone either way, even as our guts were telling us Kerry would win: Aussie Mel Gibson knows America better than we do. But that doesn't mean we need to cede the evidently decisive "moral values" issue to the religious right. The next round of debates may be laced with more quotes from the Bible than from the Constitution, but if I recall correctly, Jesus of Nazareth said a few things about killing, about the meek, and generally, about how we should all go about living together that might come in handy for our side. And just one link: John Powers.

Ok, enough. Movies.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian unveils its list of "Goldies" (Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery Awards) for the year, and a Lifetime Achievement award goes to Bruce Conner. Johnny Ray Huston:

Conner's movie-making proves he's a seer. Dennis Hopper cites his editing as a formative influence on Easy Rider, and like fellow Canyon Cinema trailblazer Kenneth Anger, Conner can rightfully claim that music video directors owe their very existence to him - though the hordes who unknowingly followed in his wake usually confuse his pointed formal approach with mere style.

The other film-related Goldie recipient this year is Kelly Duane. Susan Gerhard: "As a political documentary, Monumental does the impossible: it breathes." And there's just one film review this week: Kimberly Chun on Alfie.

Three writers put together a piece in Outlook India on the censorship of films in their country: "At the cutting edge of the debate is political ideology and hate speech, rather than obscenity and violence." Also via Perlentaucher's "Magazinrundschau": Muriel Zagha's review in the Times Literary Supplement of Edward McPherson's Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat: "Keaton wanted to produce a vision so true it 'hurt'."

For the City Pages, Rex Sorgatz interviews Blogumentary filmmaker Chuck Olsen, who describes the project as "partially a website, partially a large collection of archived video interviews, and partially a documentary. It's become an amorphous entity without beginning or end."

Doug Cummings on Japanese horror of the 50s and 60s.

In the LA Weekly:

• A generously annotated preview of the AFI Fest, opening today and running through November 14.
• David Chute on The Incredibles, which "conveys more zest for the sheer sensuous charge of a good thriller than any live-action movie in years."
• Alex Hanley Bemis talks to William Shatner about his Ben Folds-produced album, Has Been.

Anthony Kaufman at indieWIRE: "The Oscar category for Best Foreign Language film is fraught with so many intricate procedures and regulations that both industry insiders and outsiders never fail to be surprised by its outcome."

In the New York Times:

• Randy Kennedy profiles Koji Suzuki, the novelist who's provided the storylines for several J-horror films.

• Lewis Beale checks in on George Romero as he films Land of the Dead in Toronto.

• Caryn James talks to novelist Ian McEwan, screenwriter Joe Penhall and director Roger Michell to track the process of turning McEwan's "apparently unadaptable" novel into Enduring Love.

• Matthew Hays discovers the dangers facing documentary filmmaker Parvez Sharma and the subjects of his newest, In the Name of Allah, which profiles Muslim homosexuals.

• Marlise Simons reports on the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had recently stirred controversy with a film critical of elements of Islamic culture. In a follow-up piece today, Simons adds that eight arrests have been made in connection with the crime. In the Guardian, Jon Henley reports that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is "'very much afraid' that 'Submission,' an 11-minute film about Islamic violence against women that she wrote and the filmmaker produced, was the direct cause of his death. Unlike van Gogh, Hirsi Ali lives under 24-hour police protection."

• Jason George on the Icelandic government's efforts to attract foreign filmmakers: "So could Reykjavik be the next Toronto?"

Andrea Gronvall interviews James Wan and Leigh Whannel, the filmmakers behind Saw for Movie City News, which points to a BBC piece on Tarantino's plans: "Everyone still thinks I'm doing Inglorious Bastards next, but before I do that I want to do something much smaller." Your basic little kung fu flick. In Mandarin.

In the Guardian:

• The London Film Festival wraps today, and the paper tops off its coverage. For more, of course, check the Times, one of the fest's co-sponsors.

• A ten-part adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and the Margarita is being shot in Russia and the Orthodox Church is not pleased, reports Nick Paton Walsh.

• John Sutherland's defense of piracy: "A revolution is happening in the film industry. Behind every revolution lies crime. Until after the revolution, that is, when crime is redefined as the people's hammer blow for freedom. Forward with the student downloaders, say I." Meanwhile, in the NYT, Laura M Holson reports that some Hollywood studios are about to make the same mistake the music industry's made.

• B Ruby Rich interviews David O Russell. We get a little more background on what sort of activist he was back in the 80s.

• Will Hodgkinson gets cast in The Wild and Wycked World of Brian Jones: "I came to interview Woolley and a few cast members about the film, but in a cost-cutting process that is no doubt common in the impoverished British film industry, [Stephen] Woolley's got me multi-tasking."

• Oliver Burkeman meets The Yes Men.

• Owen Bowcott on remakes that never should have been.

• Michael Billington on Peter Brook's production of "an extraordinary trilogy that raises timeless questions about the subversiveness of faith, the meaning of existence and the conflict of free will and destiny."

Two Election Night party reports at Salon: Rebecca Traister on Harvey Weinstein's and Priya Jain and Corrie Pikul's on The Daily Show's.

In the New Yorker: Larissa MacFarquhar meets Paul Giamatti.

Jessica Winter talks to Bill Condon about Kinsey: "There's a myth in American movies that's as strong today as ever, that there exists out there a soul mate for you who will also fulfill all your sexual needs over an entire lifetime. And if you don't find that person, then somehow you've failed in life."

Also in the Village Voice:

• Besides reviewing The Incredibles, Winter also meets Jonathan Glazer and Dennis Lim (who also offers a capsule review of Todd Haynes's "Dottie Gets Spanked") interviews Birth cinematographer Harris Savides.

• J Hoberman previews the series "The Mexican Cinema of Luis Buñuel" and looks back on On the Waterfront: "[I]t is thanks to Brando that this posthumous Popular Front classic is a heart-clutcher from beginning to end."

• Laura Sinagra on the "bangin' charity revue" Fade to Black.

• Leslie Camhi previews the Swiss American Film Festival.

• Jorge Morales on Bear Cub ("Spanish director Miguel Albaladejo bursts the post-Almodóvar gay-ghetto movie bubble") and Brother to Brother ("the leaden script fails to live up to the poetry of its subjects").

• Melissa Anderson on Still, the Children Are Here; for more, see Stephen Holden's review in the NYT.

• "Scanners" and "Tracking Shots": Michael Atkinson on The Parson's Widow and "New Czech Films" and David Blaylock on Callas Forever.

In the New York Press:

• Matt Zoller Seitz on the The Incredibles: "Wow." And On the Waterfront: "At once a self-justifying revision and a searing confession of moral failure, it's an extraordinarily truthful lie, and one of the most complex, contradictory, guilt-ridden films of the 50s."

• Armond White compares Alfie with Vera Drake: "One movie lies, the other reveals." Also: Criterion's Cassavetes collection (White doesn't know why there's no Carney commentary?).

• Mark Ames reviews the Alexander preview: "If you have any love of country left, boycott this movie."

• DVDs: Julien LaPointe on The Fearless Vampire Killers, Joe McGovern on Brain Donors and Jim Knipfel on Conquest.

In the Independent, now sporting a new design:

• Johnny Depp will be starring as John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in The Libertine and the film has prompted reissues of Rochester's poetry, reports Louise Jury.
• Charlotte Cripps previews the Sheffield International Documentary Festival (November 8 through 14).
• David Thomson pines for the women of the 30s and 40s.

Online viewing tip. Trailers for Katsuhito Ishii's The Taste of Tea, via Todd at Twitch.

Posted by dwhudson at November 4, 2004 6:56 AM