Shorts, 2/22.

Darren Aronofsky is busily adapting Theodore Roszak's novel, Flicker; at Flickhead, Ray Young gives us a taste of what we might have to look forward to.

You may remember Jonathan Marlow describing the films of Owen Land as "the most promising discovery" of this year's festival in Rotterdam. In springerin, Christian Höller examines the work: "'The period before the after' undoubtedly describes the peculiarity of the filmic moment, which, as a free-floating, imaginary signifier, is already over at the very moment when it is captured. And this moment is one that structural film - and Owen Land as one of its initiators - has explored with consummate rigour, right down to the structure and substantial nature of its material."

Matt Clayfield: "It is telling... that Akira Kurosawa should be so drawn to the circle as a model for narrative structure in his films, particularly in regards to Seven Samurai (1954) , which is at once both his finest work and a perfectly realised treatise on the tragically cyclical nature of man's existence in the universe."

Geoff Pingree on Pedro Almodóvar in Cineaste: "While Bad Education may be his most intimately playful and privately self-conscious movie, it is also perhaps his most politically relevant." Also: Robert Sklar on Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate: "If you're going to tell a story about nasty, bad people scheming to take over the country, don't you have to consider that nasty, bad capitalists don't need to take over the country, they already own and run it - whoever happens to be President?"

How could I have missed this in the Berlinale wrap-up? David Lowery looks back on the highlights from the POV of a highly active participant in the Talent Campus. In words and pictures.

Another major oversight: Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay on The Beat My Heart Skipped, The Wayward Cloud, Tickets and what might have been his favorite, The Late Mitterand.

Also at or via Filmmaker: the New Directors / New Films lineup; Steve Gallagher on All About Lily Chou-Chou, "one of the most stylistically innovative and haunting films I have seen in quite some time"; Aaron Dobbs and Lily Oei's interview at Gothamist with Film Comment editor-at-large and Walter Reade Theater / Film Society of Lincoln Center assistant director of programming Kent Jones.

But wait, there's more: Aaron and Lily's very next interview is with Lawrence Kardish, senior curator at MoMA's Department of Film and Media.

For the Journal of Religion & Film, Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare reviews Caelum Vatnsdal's They Came From Within: A History of Canadian Horror Cinema.

KinoShock, now also known as the Open Film Festival of CIS Countries and Baltic States, has turned 13, offering Gul'nara Abikeyeva an opportunity to assess the national cinemas of the former Soviet Republics and "the formal cultural unity of former Soviet space" in KinoKultura.

With major studios paying overdue attention to the burgeoning Latin American market, Perla Ciuk examines Warners' production contract with Alfonso Cuarón.

Also in the New York Times:

• Michael Janofsky: "In a hotly contested awards race this season, several Hollywood companies have found themselves walking a tightrope, as they seek attention for films that are tightly wound around difficult social issues without alienating parties to the debate or seeming to exploit human suffering for the sake of a prize."

• Alix Browne on Ridley Scott's perfume ad, "part of a burgeoning genre of cinema - the superlong commercial as short film."

• Miramax and Disney: At long last, the end may be nigh, reports Laura M Holson. More from Claudia Eller and Lorenza Muñoz in the Los Angeles Times.

• Sharon Waxman on the big gay marriage episode of The Simpsons.

Michael Tully recommends watching The American Astronaut, catching a related live event and exploring the work of a few people responsible for it all.

Via Matt Dentler: Bryan Poyser and Jacob Vaughn, the director and producer, respectively, of Dear Pillow, are blogging and prepping for the Independent Spirit Awards.

JG Ballard on David Thomson's The Whole Equation:

Hollywood, a cluster of metal sheds in the shabbier suburbs of Los Angeles, itself a suburb of nowhere, has created what is virtually the first religion devoted solely to entertaining its congregation. Hollywood has taught us how to behave when falling in love, standing up for our beliefs, defending our families and seeking a better life. Most of us, mysteriously, have accepted its guiding hand, in countless ways of which we're largely unaware.

Also in the Observer:

• Paul Harris profiles Chris Rock. More from Ian Garrick Mason; and that disturbing 2001 New Republic piece from Justin Driver.

• Andrew Anthony meets Margo Stilley, star of 9 Songs: "Needless to say, she looked different with her clothes on."

• One more look back at Sundance: David Keeps.

• Polly Vernon talks fashion with Paz Vega.

• Liz Hoggard meets Sophie Okonedo.

• Barbara Ellen considers the Oscar nominees for Best Actress and decides "Hollywood is revising its criteria for assessing and rewarding its female contingent."

• Anne Thompson argues that the Academy's actors will determine the outcome on Oscar night.

• Gaby Wood discusses The Woodsman with director Nicole Kassell.

Judy Bachrach talks to Michael Moore about the challenges of making Sicko. Also in Vanity Fair: Editor Graydon Carter tells the story - his story - of the VF Party in an excerpt from Oscar Night, and snapshots snapped the day of Annie Leibovitz's shoot for the cover of this month's Hollywood issue.

At Movie City News, Emanuel Levy asks, "How good are Oscar-winning movies, artistically?" And via MCN, Steve Meacham in the Age tours the world Peter Jackson's built: "Some Kiwi wags are calling it 'the other Jackson's Neverland.'"

In the New Yorker, Daniel Radosh reminds us that it's not quite a billion people who'll be watching Sunday night.

Morgan Spurlock goes LA all the way.

Newsweek's Devin Gordon chats with Eric Idle and Mike Nichols about Spamalot:

Gordon: I'm surprised to hear that you're still fiddling with the show. Are you dissatisfied with the standing ovations you've been getting?

Idle: Yes. We want them to be flying ovations. [Nichols laughs] We want actual liftoff. It's not good enough for them to be standing and screaming.

Nichols: It's not. It's vulgar.

Also: David Ansen on Gunner Palace: "There are sights in Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's eye-opening documentary that will confirm and confound both right and left."

Brandchannel presents its 2004 Product Placement Awards. Congrats to Apple for its Lifetime Achievement Award for Product Placement.

Steve Erickson in Gay City News: "[Agnès] Varda's last feature, The Gleaners and I, celebrated the French art of scavenging for discarded but useful objects. With Cinévardaphoto, she has combed through her own work, creating a discourse whose impact grows as it progresses."

To what extent is Tsai Ming-Liang's 25-minute The Skywalk is Gone a precursor to The Wayward Cloud? That's not a question Darren Hughes addresses directly, but his thoughts on the short film as it relates to What Time Is It There? and Goodbye, Dragon Inn suggest a few ways into the feature.

At the Harvard Film Archive from March 2 through May 9: Visions from the South: Korean Cinema 1960 - 2005."

The way Adam Hartzell describes Kim Hong-joon's ongoing video essay My Korean Cinema, it sounds like an intriguing Korean counterpart to Scorsese's My Voyage to Italy or A Personal Journey Through American Movies.

For Outlook India, Labonita Ghosh visits the set of Aparna Sen's 15, Park Avenue, a complex, many-layered drama in English about a schizophrenic woman and her troubled relationship with her family... currently being shot in Bhutan and Calcutta." Also: Sauma Roy on Indian Idol.

Also via Perlentaucher's "Magazinrundschau": Salonaz Sami talks to screenwriter Wahid Hamed about adapting Alaa El-Aswani's novel, The Yaqoubian Building for the screen: "'I started reading - and instantly I fell in love.' To Hamed the novel tackles a very important theme: 'the discrepancy between the way people pretend to live their lives and the reality of how they live them'."

George Fasel on Bertolucci's La Commare Secca and Rivette's Le Pont du nord.

Salon's Downfall double feature: Andrew O'Hehir's review and Ida Hattemer-Higgins's interview with Rochus Misch, Hitler's bodyguard, courier and telephone operator from 1940 to 1945.

For the Independent, it's a Kevin Bacon double: David Thomson consideration of who the man might actually be and Liese Spencer's interview. Also: Simmy Richman meets Samuel L Jackson.

Dennis Cozzalio: "[Manohla] Dargis's writing has really become, for me, one of the high points of American film criticism, and her levelheaded [Sidney] Lumet piece is just one more reason why." Also: "DVD Commentaries You Should Actually Hear."

In Kamera, Colin Odell and Michelle le Blanc look back to Bergman's 1954 comedy, A Lesson in Love.

In the Village Voice:

• J Hoberman finds Jan Hrebejk's Up and Down "broader than the classic Czech comedies that are referenced in both its tone and casting."

• Mark Peranson's Berlinale impressions.

• Michael Musto at the Miami Film Festival.

• Jori Finkel reviews Bruce Wagner's novel, The Chrysanthemum Palace.

In the New York Press:

• Armond White explains why, for him, Christopher Munch's Harry and Max "almost works." Can't help mentioning we've got not just one but two interviews with Munch up.

• Matt Zoller Seitz on that "little miracle," Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior.

• Saul Austerlitz marks up your TV schedule for you.

Vince Keenan's found a new way to measure the passage of time.

Only barely film-related but juicy fun nonetheless: Apprentice-of-Nothing Greg Allen's tussle with the Christo generation.

Online viewing tip #1. Greg Gilpatrick's great, great, great video for Marbles' "Magic." There are excursions into 3D, but overall, this is the most elegant of flat space since the classic video for Prince's "Sign o' the Times."

Online viewing tip #2. The trailer for the Minutemen movie, we jam econo, via the cinetrix, who also lets out news that Liz Penn has returned.

Online viewing tip #3. The video for Viva Voce's "Alive With Pleasure," via Coudal Partners.

Online viewing tips, dozens of 'em, via Twitch:

• Todd rounds up "A Flurry of Brussels Film Fest [March 11 through 23] Trailers."

• The trailer for Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly. Uh-oh: Keanu Reeves might be Hollywood's loneliest star. Time's Lev Grossman looks into it. While we worry: Be Excellent to Each Other, a one act play by Matt at low culture.

• The trailer for Anders Rønnow Klarlund's Le Fil de la Vie (Strings).

• Andrew Goth's Cold & Dark.

Posted by dwhudson at February 22, 2005 4:04 PM