Blogs and shorts.

"Another Sundance treasure: Adrienne Weiss's "Love, Ludlow," wrote Roger Ebert a little over a week ago. "The screenplay by David Patterson makes these characters into distinctive originals, eccentrics right on the edge of being impossible." Patterson is also the film's executive producer, and so, is understandably disappointed that no deal for the film was nailed during the fest. What now? That's what Patterson's blogging about even now.

Soon to be blogging: Oscar Night producer Gil Cates, at Oscar.com. Chris Marlowe has more for the Hollywood Reporter.

Another one: The newly launched blog for Margaret Cho's Bam Bam and Celeste.

The site that used to be known as BadAssMovieImages.com is now RareMovieImages.com and, while the question of whether or not it's a blog now is best left to others, one fresh image per day is going up. On Monday, it was Anna Karina.

Last week, the magazine HP/De Tijd asked several Dutch filmmakers whether they think Theo Van Gogh simply went too far in his critique of Islam with his film, Submission - and what his murder might mean for them. The DutchReport translates.

Via Movie City Indie:

• Elizabeth Bard in Wired on what looks to be a fascinating piece from Jeremy Blake, the Winchester trilogy.

• Filter reports that Vincent Gallo has curated "Weekend Two" of the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival, slated for April 22 - 24.

• Gabriel Sanders interviews Sharon Waxman for Forward.

• The San Francisco Chronicle's G Allen Johnson: "The plight of Infernal Affairs - a movie so good that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are remaking it [with Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson, too] - exemplifies a growing trend among American distributors: They seemingly don't know what to do with the Asian films they buy."

For indieWIRE, Liza Bear talks to Hirokazu Kore-eda about Nobody Knows: "What I wanted to show more was children's incredible stamina and lust for life and vulnerability and complexity - that's also an aspect of children that tends not to get acknowledged. And the vividness of children is easier to see when they're completely left to their own devices." His next film: "It will be a period piece set in the Edo era, 'Hana Yorimo Naho.'"

Filmbrain's take on the film: "A thousand and one dire films could easily have been made from this premise, yet Koreeda manages to avoid every possible cliché and pitfall (and there are many) in his take on events that actually did occur back in 1988... [I]t's one that shouldn't be missed."

Richard Goldstein addresses the "Cartoon Wars" in the Nation: "[Conservative James] Dobson and his kind aren't really worried about cartoons turning kids queer. Their aim is to see that homophobia is free to operate, and one way to do that is to keep children from seeing gays as part of the human community."

"Historically, nobody has hated British cinema more than British film critics - except, perhaps, British academics, British film mandarins and the editors of British film magazines. And that legacy of contempt is still shaping opinions today." This isn't simply an amusing observation from Matthew Sweet; it's a situation that's got real consequences. Also in the Independent: Elaine Lipworth interviews Anjelica Huston.

Overlooked on Wednesday, somehow, but caught via Movie City News: Jake Brooks's talk with Eugene Jarecki about Why We Fight and other notes from Sundance.

When Mike Leigh was asked who among the "up-and-coming" filmmakers he'd like to talk to, he chose Lynne Ramsay, though, as he tells her, "I suppose, you're already there." Leo Benedictus introduces the chat. Meanwhile, Charlotte Higgins reports that Leigh will have a play at the National Theatre this year.

Also in the Guardian: John Patterson on Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey's Inside Deep Throat.

Stephen Dalton profiles Steven Soderbergh for the London Times.

"I picked it now because I had planned to be a novelist and it's probably the movie that made me want to be a director, the first one that impressed me as being as complex as a book." Tod Williams tells the Telegraph's Sheila Johnston why he'd like to talk about Last Tango in Paris. Also: David Gritten interviews Alejandro Amenábar and Paul Gent looks back to The Gold Rush.

Slate's Bryan Curtis doesn't think James Cameron's interest in the deep ocean is as real as he'd like it to be; instead, he theorizes, the fame and "newfound decency" Titanic brought him has scared him away from what he does best, which, basically, is making spectacular genre flicks. But one could just as easily speculate in the opposite direction: Having conquered Hollywood, Cameron may have decided to concentrate on what he cares about more.

Greg Allen's found a sad but undeniably funny read in Blair Erickson's tale of working with Uwe Boll on Alone in the Dark - until he and his writing partner bail.

Online viewing tip. A commercial most certainly not directed by Werner Herzog.

Posted by dwhudson at February 4, 2005 2:10 PM