Weekend shorts.

Filmbrain explains why he entirely understands that Aimless Bullet was voted greatest Korean film of all time in 1999 by Korean film critics.

Ben Slater has a major bone to pick with Tony Rayns:

In his absurd confidence about his own superiority in "the strange case of Kim Ki-duk," Rayns seems to have developed his own "blind spot" when it comes to his accusations about Kim. Claims that Kim is just a cynical manipulator of controversy and that the festivals that programme him are looking for a cheap thrill - are all charges that could so easily be levelled at Rayns fave Takashi Miike. Kim certainly has an eye on the Western market, and when I interviewed him he admitted that his lack of dialogue was in part a deliberate strategy to allow his films to travel, but I cannot for a moment question the intense, extraordinary sincerity of his work (all of which was in place long before Venice made him famous).

George Fasel's been on a Wong Kar-wai kick lately.

Sort of a Chinese double feature at the New York Times: Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers marks an increasing openness on the part of the Chinese government and viewers to accept "a frank, liberated approach to sex," writes Jean Tang, who talks to the director and a few stateside professors to get a broader picture of what's going on on the mainland. And Howard R French reports from Shanghai on the making of Merchant and Ivory's The White Countess, "an ambitious attempt to recapture the last flickers of this city's past greatness."

Also in the NYT:

• "In the cult of Wes, everything connects." Christian Moerk maps the constellation swirling around Wes Anderson. The accompanying chart helps, too.

• AO Scott considers Mike Nichols's Closer in the light of his entire career, but particularly his first film, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: "Looking at the two films side by side can create a vertiginous, time-warp feeling." But that doesn't necessarily make the new one any good, argues NP Thompson.

• Scott also puts forward a theory and defends it: "[C]hildren's entertainment has become the cornerstone of the American movie industry, not only commercially, but artistically as well."

• What should have been the appeal of Alexander? The "eerily familiar details of his grandiose military ambition," of course, but Emily Eakin goes further: "Infinitely malleable and all-encompassing, auspicious allegory and cautionary tale, his story is tailor-made for the new world order."

• Manohla Dargis on Hong Sang-soo's The Power of Kangwon Province, "one of the best films you can see this year."

• Alan Riding on what Robert Wilson's been up to lately: "'[P]ainting' portraits - so far of celebrities like Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder - in the new medium of high-definition television." The paces he puts them through sound exhausting, but Isabelle Huppert at least is a trooper.

• Jesse McKinley takes the male cast of Neil LaBute's new play, Fat Pig out to dinner "to discuss what the show's actors, writer and producers really thought about the way the play depicted male psychology. Their verdict? It's scarily dead on."

• "He has shared regular gym workouts with Yukio Mishima, attended a geisha party given by Francis Ford Coppola and taken Susan Sontag to a live sex show (which she declared to be 'about as erotic as a cake bake-off')." Lesley Downer reviews Donald Richie's The Japan Journals, 1947 - 2004. "Everyone who is engaged in a cultural way with Japan - myself included - has spent time in the company of this wise, irreverent, hugely knowledgeable and charmingly modest man."

• Michelle O'Donnell remembers Arthur Hailey, "whose exhaustively researched suspense novels like Airport and Hotel also became screen hits."

Simon Pegg - and we can probably safely assume it's that Simon Pegg - raves and raves over Napoleon Dynamite.

Also in the Guardian:

• Bronwyn Cosgrave spills lots of juicy background on Gone With the Wind.

• Jon Henley reports that a Parisian court has ruled that A Very Long Engagement, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, starring Audrey Tautou and employing 600 French technicians, 80 French actors and 1500 French extras, isn't French enough to warrant French and European subsidies. The reason: the production company behind it has been declared "a front for Hollywood studio Warner Brothers."

• The Review features an excerpt from Peter Carey's book Wrong About Japan, chronicling his attempt to reach his 12-year-old son via his newly found interest in Japanese culture.

• Leslie Phillips, now 80, has been acting for 70 years and has appeared in over 100 films. Dan Davies meets him.

• Andrew Pulver's adaptation of the week: Fight Club.

• John Patterson: "It's time Tom [Hanks] took a few risks."

The Independent's Roger Clarke piece on Isabelle Huppert is billed as an interview, but it's a more a profile; Ben Affleck's the one who chats a lot, wouldn't you know it; with Tiffany Rose. Also: Geoffrey Macnab files from the IDFA doc fest in Amsterdam, where filmmaker Duraid Munajim has been blogging and enlivening nearly every entry with loads o' pix. The indieWIRE IDFA bloggers tick off the winners.

For Movie City News, Gary Dretzka talks to Robert Stone about his doc, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst: "I was sympathetic to [the SLA's] critiques of our materialistic society and capitalism, but... All of their actions were counterproductive to their ideals."

István Szabó tells the Telegraph's Sheila Johnston what he admires about Andrzej Wajda, Zbigniew Cybulski and Ashes and Diamonds.

Having read who-knows-how-much reader email and considered all the incoming suggestions, David Edelstein sorts and categorizes biopics - and even finds a few good ones.

Poor drew. He keeps running across terrible ideas. First it was the remake of The Warriors. Now it's a sequel to The Usual Suspects.

Posted by dwhudson at November 27, 2004 2:06 PM