December 2, 2004

Rushes and shorts.

The Life & Death of Peter Sellers Over time, I've learned to schedule tedious spam-deleting sessions during some online radio program. Last night, the program of choice was Elvis Mitchell's chat with Geoffrey Rush. The topic at hand, for the most part, of course, was The Life & Death of Peter Sellers, premiering Sunday on HBO. By all accounts, whatever reviewers think of the film itself, all agree that Rush is terrific as the disturbed and disturbing comic virtuoso.

A few minutes in, I found myself thinking: Geoffrey Rush sounds a bit like John Lennon. A few minutes later, I thought, no, Rush sounds a lot like Lennon. Or at least he could. Piece of cake. Sure enough, Mitchell and Rush's conversation eventually steered to Lennon. And this morning, I find that, expressing his extremely mixed reactions to Life & Death, James Wolcott, too, can help but wander into lingering thoughts on Lennon.

So how could this be arranged? Rush is 53. Lennon was 40 when he was shot dead. "Had Lennon Lived"? "John Lennon: Live from Purgatory"? Screenwriters: Have at it. Don't bother to credit me, either. (As a matter of fact, please don't.)

To the shorts. First up, Ella Taylor:

Few nations have been as efficient a builder of giant corporations as the United States, and no other culture has grown as robust a hatred and mistrust - or expressed its hostility more floridly in movies - of those same institutions. Hollywood's obsessive love-hate relationship with business and bureaucracy has a long and complex history.

Ressources humaines And, from Modern Times to The Incredibles, she sketches that history, pointing out along the way that "American pop culture's antipathy toward business is for the most part curiously abstract and unspecific," while it's been up to European filmmakers to explore "the quotidian rhythms of labor, or the workplace's tumultuous emotional significance in a time of rapid socioeconomic change."

Great to see a solid piece like that appear without any immediately visible tie-in to a currently traveling press junket.

Also in the LA Weekly:

Well, it looks like every alt.weekly is going to do a holiday DVDs-as-gifts guide. No doubt they're fun to do. Free review copies, hours on the couch in the name of "work." Today's comes from the Austin Chronicle and the choices are anything but predictable.

Also:

"I'm in a zombie movie," writes an enthralled Susan Wloszczyna in USA Today. "Not just any zombie movie, but Land of the Dead, directed and written by a man who has done more for the deceased than embalming fluid, Forest Lawn and HBO's Six Feet Under put together. To be in a George Romero zombie film, his first in almost 20 years, is like being in a Clint Eastwood Western or a Martin Scorsese gangster epic. It doesn't get much better than this." Via Movie City News.

Since he couldn't readily find Bertolucci's The Conformist on tape or DVD, Jonathan Demme decided to chat with the Telegraph's Sheila Johnston about Napoleon Dynamite, which he's seen four times already. Also: Steven Daly meets Natalie Portman.

Can John Travolta come back a third time, asks Caryn James. Also in the New York Times: You've read the book, seen the doc and maybe even the cartoon. As of next spring, you'll likely be able to catch The Kid Live on Broadway: The Notorious Life of Robert Evans. Jesse McKinley reports.

At IDFA last week, Albert Maysles mentioned he'd be making outtakes from Gimme Shelter available to San Francisco police as they reopen an investigation into the death of Meredith Hunter at the Stones concert at Altamont. Geoffrey Macnab reports.

Also in the Guardian:



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Posted by dwhudson at December 2, 2004 5:27 AM