February 3, 2005

Shorts, 2/3.

The Hero Sundance reports are still being filed, and again, the further away from the actual festival we move, the bigger the picture. Let's start with B Ruby Rich:

This year I was a member of the Dramatic Competition jury, charged with judging 16 American feature films. Inevitably at a festival, themes emerge. This time it was underage sex.... More and more, it seems the American dramatic imagination has curtailed itself, choosing to avoid the horrific events through which we are living today.... In documentary and foreign films, it was a different story.

Also in the Guardian:

  • Archie Thomas reports on Lars von Trier's experimental group project, The Advance Party for which three filmmakers "must make three different features, all using the same actors playing the same characters. They must also shoot in digital, on location in Glasgow, in six weeks."

  • Geoffrey Macnab on Kevin Keating's Giuliani Time, "a less-than-flattering portrait of the politician famous for his 'stop and frisk', 'broken windows' and 'zero tolerance' policies."

  • The Abbey Road film festival, March 19 through April 3.

American independent film may be floundering, writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir in his "Beyond the Multiplex" column, but films from elsewhere are more than taking up the slack: "In January alone, I saw five movies made in different corners of the planet, and each one was a mind-opening experience. Each reminded me of a contradictory law of cinematic physics: The film world gets more tightly connected all the time, but it's far bigger than we usually realize."

The LA Weekly has three Sundance stories to tell:

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm

Also, Nikki Finke: "Rarely has one article caused such a commotion on both coasts as journalist Bernie Weinraub's goodbye to the Hollywood beat in The New York Times on Sunday.... [W]hat oozes from it is the gunky notion that a journalist wanted to live like the people he covered here. And he isn't alone."

Marjorie Baumgarten does the Sundance honors for the Austin Chronicle; while she hits many of the same points you'll have seen by now - the tightrope walk between the corporate and the independent, the stupid JibJab trailers and so on - she then turns to how the Austinites fared and wraps with "Film Church," in which John Pierson "railed at the industry" one day and Elvis Mitchell "devised a new 10 Commandments of Independent Film (even though he offered only six – or maybe eight)."

Also:

Meanwhile, Rotterdam rolls on through the weekend and, for indieWIRE, Stephen Garrett files a report, focussing on the series, "Post Script Homefront USA."

It's in Rotterdam, too, that Caveh Zahedi's I am a Sex Addict has just premiered; Jonathan Romney turns in a review for Screen International (evidently the reviews are freely accessible for a few days though the news remains exclusively available to subscribers): "[W]itty, self-reflexive, often painfully revealing... Despite qualms, this provocative and courageous film raises serious questions both about sexuality and about the way people narrate their lives to others." Via Movie City Indie.

John Hiscock hits the highlights of an interview with Budd Schulberg in the new issue of Vanity Fair in which he describes how Brando was more than a little reluctant to accept the role of Don Corleone in The Godfather. A sidebar notes a few other might-not-have-beens. Also in the Independent: David Usborne on celebs, and in particular, Sharon Stone who use what power they've got in all the right ways; and Ed Caesar interviews Paul Giamatti.

Madrid M11 Greg Allen has made an intriguing discovery: Madrid 11M: Todos Ibamos en Ese Tren, a collection of documentary shorts which tell 27 different stories related to the coordinated bombings that took place in the Spanish capital on March 11, 2004.

Jennifer Allen in Artforum: "What is the relationship between artists and copyright law? Liam Gillick and Philippe Parreno offer some reflections on this topic in "Briannnnnn and Ferryyyyyy," 2004, a series of short animations riffing on that old cartoon staple, the cat-and-mouse chase." Also: Tom Vanderbilt on The Yes Men.

Most of the nation, not to mention the rest of the world, hasn't had the opportunity to see several of movies nominated for various Oscars, and that's worrying the ratings-conscious Academy, reports Micheline Maynard in the New York Times.

NP Thompson sneers at the Oscar nominations and offers respite: a short interview with Catalina Sandino Moreno and Joshua Marston, star and director of Maria Full of Grace.

Bitter Cinema is back - and how.

At the SF IndieBlog: A tour diary by Simon Safranek, director of The Myth, which is all about Nick Cave and his fans.

Twitch is working on an international DVD release calendar. Set that next to Masters of Cinema's, deplete your bank account keeping up, and you'll be one well-rounded cinephile.

Online viewing tip #1. Mark Vidler's "Paperback Believer." Via Fimoculous.

Online viewing tip #2. Mary Quits, nominated for a SXSW Web Award in the Best Blog category. Via Chuck Olsen.



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Posted by dwhudson at February 3, 2005 2:14 PM