Shorts, 4/5.

What a strange spring, suffused as it's been with death. Worse, all this waiting for the inevitable. The ritual has played out in Florida and the Vatican in radically different ways, of course, but the echoing of motifs described by Youssef Rakha in the Al-Ahram Weekly (via Perlentaucher's "Magazinrundschau") on the occasion of another death that hasn't resonated too far west of Egypt is chilling:

It seemed peculiarly fortuitous that an actor's funeral should be preceded by so much political angst, yet it was equally peculiarly apt. His phenomenal talent notwithstanding, a significant portion of the media and popular attention paid to Ahmed Zaki's illness - and the ubiquitously sentimental anticipation of his death - was due to the place he occupied in the collective imagination, a place reinforced all the more by his decision to die playing the singing legend Abdel-Halim Hafez in the incomplete film biography Al-Andalib.

In the same issue, Hani Mustafa draws an intriguing parallel between the changes Sidney Poitier brought about in Hollywood with those Ahmed Zaki introduced to Egyptian cinema. Mohamed El-Assyouti considers the career, and this is probably the most helpful piece for those (like me) who don't know that much about him.

Same issue, different topic: Iman Hamam took in last months retrospective, "Beyond Truth and Fiction: The Works of Akram Zaatari and Mohamad Soueid," and reflects on the state of independent filmmaking in the Arab world.

Chris Fujiwara on Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, "a remarkably modern film": "Lang is the least consoling of filmmakers, and Testament is one of his starkest works. Yet it's also a work of dazzling exuberance." Also in the Spring 05 issue of Cineaste: Sidney Gottlieb reviews Robert Garis's The Films of Orson Welles and Peter Conrad's Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life.

Gregory Crouch recounts the story of a vital find: "Over a three-year period, the Filmmuseum's archivists waded through a virtual hazardous waste site of decaying film before they discovered all seven reels of Beyond the Rocks." The 1922 silent film stars Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson and may hit theaters in the fall.

Also in the New York Times:

• Todd S Purdum pays a visit to Jane Fonda and Janet Maslin reviews My Life So Far.

• Hollywood has "found gold, or at least dramatic fodder, in its own bellybutton," writes David Carr.

• Dave Kehr on a few choice DVD releases.

The Pulitzers. Greg Allen (who has an online viewing tip for you) notes the significance of one of the awards; meantime, congrats to Joe Morgenstern.

Darren Aronofsky tells the SuicideGirls' Daniel Robert Epstein more than we've heard yet about The Fountain. Also via Cinematical: Lots and lots - seven hours' worth, evidently - from Kevin Smith about where he'll be going from here.

Together again: Spike Lee will be directing Denzel Washington in Inside Man, reports blackfilm.com. Via the Movie Blog by way of Coming Soon.

The #1 movie in Korea this weekend was Ryoo Seung-wan's Crying Fist, featuring Oldboy's Choi Min-shik. Darcy Paquet has just posted a review at Koreanfilm.org. Also noted: South Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre and National Cinema, edited by Kathleen McHugh and Nancy Abelmann.

Asian film roundup at Twitch:

• The Gomorrahlizer has found quite a bit on Isshin Inudô's Maison de Himiko.

• Todd is very pleased with the new trailer for Kim Ki-duk's 3-Iron and has found a bit more on Jang Jun-hwan's Save the Green Planet.

• Kaiju Shakedown is, like it says right there, "Variety's Asian film blog, written by Grady Hendrix."

Steve Gallagher raises a damn good question:

Most musicians make ends meet through constant touring and from the sale of merchandise at concerts. The corollary for filmmakers, I suppose, is the non-theatrical speaking gig. Why has no enterprising company sprung up to capitalize on this by organizing the touring circuit for indie filmmakers - who currently must go it alone on the road - at universities, film societies, festivals (which should compensate filmmakers for their work), and other grass-roots organizations?

That's at Filmmaker, where Scott Macaulay's made a fun find that'll segue nicely into a surprising piece from NP Thompson: "Words fail me in describing The Ballad of Jack and Rose, the third film written and directed by Rebecca Miller. The recipient of several bad reviews both here in Seattle and across the nation, this movie is actually a ravishing tour de force, the first piece of cinema in 2005 that ascends to such dizzying, vertiginous heights of greatness that I walked out of the theatre, to use Pauline Kael's word, 'reeling.'"

In the Voice:

• J Hoberman on Kung Fu Hustle, which "misses few opportunities to parody China's (and Sony Classics') current Crouching Flying Heroizing cinema of quality, not to mention The Matrix and Gangs of New York." Ed Park talks to Stephen Chow: "It's all because of Bruce Lee."

• Hoberman on A Hole in My Heart, "an unrelentingly crass and confrontational barf bomb that makes Lars von Trier's The Idiots look like the philosophical experiment that it is," and on Match Girl: "A nearly forgotten example of avant-indie filmmaking and a particular sort of New York fairy tale, it transposes Andersen's story to the Silver Age of the Warhol Factory."

• Two excellent previews on a single page: Ed Halter on two series, "Amitabh Bachchan<./a>: The Biggest Film Star In The World!" at the Walter Reade and "Masters Of Indian Cinema" at the ImaginAsian, both launching on Friday.

• Michael Atkinson on Major Dundee, a "blustery, madcap preamble to the full-blooded anti-westerns that Mr. Peckinpah scorched our earth with a few years later and a genuinely Rorschachian historical stencil," and Eros: "Michelangelo Antonioni... should consider resting on his laurels and, perhaps, supervising the transfers and supplements on his old movies' DVDs."

• "Tracking Shots," parts one and two; and you know, sometimes - not always, but sometimes - at least a few of these seem like they might just be the most interesting films reviewed any given week, so don't just go skimming by.

• Oh! Julian Dibbell's writing for the Voice again. He's got a column in the "Screens" sub-section of "Arts"... I'm still trying to figure out this new site.

A Reverse Shot trio frets over Eros, too. Also at indieWIRE: Erica Abeel interviews Agnès Jaoui and Brian Brooks looks ahead to the City of Lights, City of Angels Film Festival (April 11 through 17).

Via Movie City Indie, Karin Kross and Liz Miller talk Sin City at Bookslut. More succinctly, Vince Keenan.

Monster Road co-producer and co-editor Jim Haverkamp once suggested to the cinetrix that "my mention of Edie and Edith Beale, the eccentric mother and daughter at the center of Grey Gardens, made him think I might enjoy Monster Road. He's right, and I did. Both films offer insights into complicated families and gentle eccentrics who carve out worlds just big enough for them to master."

Interviews via the IFC Blog:

• Ty Burr with Vittorio Storaro in the Boston Globe.

• Coming Soon with Kontroll director Nimród Antal; Todd at Twitch has another one: Walter Chaw at Film Freak Central. And Steve Erickson reviews the film for Gay City News.

• Annie Nakao with Ethan Mao director Quentin Lee in the San Francisco Chronicle.

• AICN's Quint with the director and cast of the big winner at SXSW, Hooligans.

Time's Richard Corliss looks back to an era "when porn - the entire cultural life - was different, bolder, weirder, better." Hearing this refrain again might seem tiresome at first, but wait. This is quite a recollection, encompassing, among many, many other things, the special issue of Film Comment on "Cinema Sex" Corliss co-edited back in 1973. Via André Soares at Cinema Minima.

Yanks who sound like Brits and vice versa: In the Guardian, John Sutherland lists the ten best and ten worst "cross-accenters."

Brian Flemming: "It isn't enough that the Australian version of the Screen Actors Guild has forbidden its members to participate in films licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Now that union has apparently declared its opposition to the very production of films licensed using Creative Commons."

Just launched, Current TV describes itself: "It'll be a video iPod stocked with a stream of short segments and set to shuffle.... Finally, there's the Current Studio: our participatory production program, anchored online and open to anyone." Via Fimoculous. Related press coverage: Jesse Hamlin in the San Francisco Chronicle and Richard Shim at CNET, where Jim Hu reports on the current state of searchable video.

Online fiddling around tip. 56kTV - Bastard Channel.

Online viewing tip #1. Delivery, an eight-minute film by Till Nowak. Via Alternet's Peek.

Online viewing tip #2. Wim Wenders talking about Land of Plenty - and America, of course - at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Film Festival, shot and posted by Chuck Olsen.

Posted by cphillips at April 5, 2005 4:14 PM