More awards, more shorts.

Who knew TV people could be so smart? Bravo, which'll be showing the Independent Spirit Awards ceremony tomorrow night (that is, after IFC broadcasts the oddly-scheduled show live), has made a spot-on choice for its AwardsMania blog: Let the cinetrix take it and run with it, now all the way through the morning after the Oscars. More fun than Sunday night's likely to be, for sure.

Meanwhile, indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez is in LA, talking to indie spirits behind the awards - and the parties. Also at iW: Jonny Leahan previews the mix of fact and fiction offered up at this weekend's True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, and Brian Brooks reports that Wellspring has picked up Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier's already controversial Dear Wendy.

Even in Hollywood, awards fatigue has set in, reports Sharon Waxman. But that we knew. No, what stands out movie-wise in today's New York Times is the selection of films the critical triumvirate has chosen to review. This is supposed to be an off season for movies, but with the usual studio schlock running scarce, column inches are freed up for a Czech satire, a doc on elderly lefties, a Brazilian thriller, a "minor" Kiarostami and so on. Here's to late February!

"Flak would like to invite you to take a step back from the prestige factory with its first annual film also-ran awards, the Steak Knives... [honoring] those solid, A-for-effort films who were never considered to be in contention for top honors."

No getting around the Oscars, though:

• Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat: "It's a constant wonder that, year after year, the world's slickest entertainment industry can crank out a TV show that's so often bloated and unwatchable."

• The Telegraph's David Gritten has the numbers to prove that audiences are catching on, too - and switching off.

• David Edelstein and Lynda Obst will be chatting each other up in Slate.

• Ed Champion's predictions.

• Dennis Cozzalio's.

• The Guardian asks six critics who'll win vs who should. The whole silly thing's prettier as a double-page spread, downloadable as a PDF file. And if that's not colorful enough for you: "The Pitchers at the Oscars." And if all that's too colorful, Leo Benedictus tells the sad tales of eight who won an Oscar and then all but disappeared.

Also in the Guardian:

• Duncan Campbell on how US and UK filmmakers are treating the subject of gay marriage.

• Max Carlish writes about trying and not quite succeeding to make a film about ex-Libertine Pete Doherty.

• Ben Sills on the film Jaime Chávarri aims to make about flamenco legend Camarón de la Isla.

Jennifer Maerz in the Stranger:

Enter Legs McNeil. The cofounder of seminal underground rag Punk magazine (which christened the genre and lifestyle) still has as his greatest legacy coauthoring the rock bible Please Kill Me - a book scoured a million times over for its details about the intersections of the early Detroit and New York punk scenes. Now McNeil has teamed up with writers Jennifer Osborne and Peter Pavia to peek into the world of cinematic sex with The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry.

[...]

Using text from firsthand interviews, federal wire taps, police reports, psychiatric records, court records, and journals, among other sources, the authors thread together five decades of illicit and erotic behavior - the composite of which is both humorous and scandalous, but overall the book paints a pretty grim portrait, albeit in a tabloid-style, Behind the Music kinda way.

Also: The "Onscreen" roundup includes Andrew Wright's review of Peter Watkins's La Commune and Sean Nelson reviews a pair of buddy pictures on DVD: Salt & Pepper and Mikey and Nicky.

Congrats to Michael Tucker and the team behind Gunner Palace for persuading the MPAA to overturn its original R rating and settle for PG-13. Movie City News has the press release.

And via MCN, Anne Thompson checks up on each of the studios' "indie" specialty units for the Hollywood Reporter.

Aaron Dobbs and Lily Oei wrap up their excellent series of interviews at the Gothamist with the programmers at some of New York's finest repertory venues with a talk with Film Forum's Bruce Goldstein, also a partner at Rialto Pictures.

Exports are vital to the French film industry, but Asian and Latin American films are driving French fare out of the arthouses, reports Sheila Johnston.

Also in the Independent:

• A Nicole Kidman season at the National Film Theatre? Is that really necessary, asks Jackie Hunter.

• Stephen Applebaum interviews Christian Bale, who wonders out loud, "What's going on with this man who thinks he can run around in a batsuit in the middle of the night?"

• Jennifer Rodger lists those who've refused Oscar.

FAZ Weekly translates Michael Althen's piece in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung celebrating the German award-winners at this year's Berlinale - and sketching once again festival director Dieter Kosslick's dilemma, that is, whether to invite stars or good films.

A better, heftier defense, one more critical of Germany's sourly critical establishment, is made in Die Zeit (and in German) by Katja Nicodemus.

Many writers have wondered in print just how much celebrity endorsements for worthy causes really help; but few have done so as well as Charlie Lee Potter in the New Statesman.

February has been Wilhelm S Wurzer month at Film-Philosophy.

Stop Smiling's DVD roundup.

Chris Gaither in the Los Angeles Times: "The days of promoting a TV show with a basic website are over. Network executives now are developing elaborate Web productions for many of their shows to create buzz, earn extra advertising dollars and, by strengthening viewer loyalty, keep ratings up."

Online viewing tip. Virginia Postrel's slide-show essay on George Hurrell.

Posted by dwhudson at February 25, 2005 8:49 AM