Shorts, 5/5.

The Guardian's running the full transcript of Geoff Andrew's conversation with Abbas Kiarostami at the National Film Theatre last week. Among the highlights: Solving a problem in Close-Up (for which Kiarostami thanks Mohsen Makhmalbaf, that is, for the problem because it required a solution), ceding control to non-actors, his best friend (his car), and then, this from the audience:

I have a question about the quote which appears at the front of the Alberto Elena book. Jean-Luc Godard famously said: "Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami." What do you feel about this?

AK: This is a very good opportunity for me to talk about this, and I think that Jean-Luc Godard would be very happy for me to make a comment about what he said. This comment was made six or seven years ago after I had made Life And Nothing More. So, therefore, if this book had been published six or seven years ago, he would have been very happy. But he doesn't believe this any more. And in every interview now, with no provocation, he makes a sly comment about me, so I don't think he believes that statement any more. So I correct, on his behalf, what has been said, and hope that he's happy about what I've said. I do think I'm diverting cinema off its course a little bit, especially with Ten.

Then Anthony Minghella hands him an award and they all call it a night.

Also in the Guardian: Kate Stables has seven online viewing tips for you.

Amy Taubin has a new "Art & Industry" column at Film Comment: "Two of the most alive U.S. fiction films in the Tribeca Film Festival are by filmmakers who, perhaps not so coincidentally, graduated from SUNY Purchase in the mid-Eighties." She then talks with John G Young about The Reception and Tim McCann about Runaway.

Cintra Wilson in Salon: "Aside from his obvious physical gifts, [Grégoire] Colin, who began acting on the French stage at age 12, brings something to the screen that American stars can't - range, emotional courage; fascinating choices. Colin takes risks that would paralyze American stars with insecurity."

Brian Brooks parses the just-announced lineup for the Seattle International Film Festival (May 19 through June 12; reviews are already coming in over at Siffblog). Looks like we're all in love with Miranda July and Joan Allen. Also at indieWIRE: Ellen Keohane looks back at Hot Docs (more from Gerald Peary in the Boston Phoenix) and Brandon Judell interviews Gregg Araki.

DOK.FEST Munich, opening tomorrow and running through May 14, is featuring a retro of some of the best works screened over its 20-year history.

Peter Keough in the Boston Phoenix: "Perhaps a return to the transgressive cinema of the young Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, and Mary Harron is overdue. But to judge from much of the selection in this year's Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts [May 11 through 22], that's not going to happen soon."

More festival news in the Austin Chronicle: Anne S Lewis previews all the entries in the 10 Under 10 shorts fest and Marc Savlov looks ahead to the TriPartIte Film Festival, one night only - tomorrow. And for a good cause, too.

Also in the Chronicle:

• Audra Schroeder: "As part of the Alamo's Music Mondays, Metal Storm: The Scandinavian Metal Wars takes a look at the scene 10 years after murder, arson, and suicide forced a burgeoning lifeblood back underground." See also: Rachel Koper on Peter Beste's photographs.

• Cindy Widner on Palindromes. More on that one from former NYC Mayor Ed Koch - yes! - via the cinetrix.

• Raoul Hernandez on Divorce Italian Style.

Meanwhile, Jette has mixed feelings about Viva Les Amis.

Dennis Cozzalio discovers (or rather, remembers) that there are indeed movies in love with Los Angeles after all.

Speaking of, Crash opens tomorrow and director Paul Haggis has been making the rounds, talking to Sam Adams of the Philadelphia City Paper, where Cindy Fuchs reviews the film, and FX Feeney for the LA Weekly. There, Ella Taylor announces that Crash is "not just one of the best Hollywood movies about race, but, along with Collateral, one of the finest portrayals of contemporary Los Angeles life period." The LAW site also features Joy Mitchell, a sophomore at USC, agreeing - but in moving, personal terms.

Also in the LA Weekly: Scott Foundas on Kingdom of Heaven: "[I]f the compromises are manifold, they're not nearly as many as they might have been, resulting in a tempered, thoughtful piece of mainstream entertainment that few will confuse with Andrei Rublev, but which may nevertheless disappoint those who are expecting Gladiator II - which, in case you haven't caught my drift, I intend as a compliment." More from Keough in the Boston Phoenix, where it's Tom Meek who praises Crash.

Back to the City Paper a moment. Sam Adams has returned to Philadelphia from Tribeca: "People go to film festivals looking for the next big thing, but the head-and-shoulders standout was a two-part tribute to Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Seta, hosted by a garrulous Martin Scorsese."

Steve Silberman's Q&A with George Lucas is having repercussions of the most bizarre sort. Instead of Star Wars fans furious over where he's taken the whole enterprise, it's right-wing bloggers blasting him for not criticizing Michael Moore the right way. No, really. At Cinematical, Karina Longworth has found and followed the threads of surely one of the silliest yet somehow irresistible flurries out there in some time.

George Fasel has considerably more than "a few thoughts" to offer on Michael Powell.

OWLS AT NOON Prelude: The Hollow Men is an installation by Chris Marker, "the first element of a work in progress conceived specifically for The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery" at MoMA. Steve Gallagher has more at Filmmaker.

Darcy Paquet on A Bittersweet Life, screening out of competition at Cannes: "The familiar stylistic traits of director Kim Jee-woon, seen before in A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), The Foul King (2000), and The Quiet Family (1998), can be spotted here in abundance, and yet he has never made a movie quite like this one." Also at Koreanfilm.org: Kyu Hyun Kim on Lee Kyu-hyung's DMZ, "jaw-droppingly inept nostalgic trip through one boy's experience as a fresh military recruit stationed at the North-South border in the late 1970s [and] my choice for the worst South Korean film of 2004."

Online viewing tip #1. Twitch's logboy's found the teaser trailer for Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.

Online viewing tip #2. "Ben's BB's." "Ben" as in "Ben & Jerry's." With a few words about our nuclear arsenal.

Online listening tip. Andrés Soares talks for nearly an hour (so, fair warning: this also nearly a 50MB download) with Roy Windham, a friend of Hedy Lamarr. So you can just imagine what they talk about.

Then, allow this small indulgence: GreenCine figures in two newspaper articles today, Ilana DeBare's on small businesses with blogs in the San Francisco Chronicle and Edward C Baig's on Akimbo in USA Today.

Posted by dwhudson at May 5, 2005 4:12 PM