Shorts, 7/1.

In his lengthy piece in the New York Times on how Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner are approaching the, shall we say, touchy subject matter of Vengeance, "the tale of a secret Mossad hit squad ordered to assassinate Palestinian terrorists after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich," David M Halbfinger plays straight into the director's hands, argues Nick Davis.

It's quite a rant. On the one hand, "Spielberg's ad copy memo," slipped exclusively to the NYT, does seem fortuitously timed and Halbfinger might have done well to acknowledge suspicions (provided he has any) that he's being played like a Stradvarius by a maestro; and yes, Spielberg may well have an overblown sense of self-importance and the potential impact of what, after all, is only a movie; on the other hand, there's little doubt that Vengeance is newsworthy particularly as War of the Worlds tears through theaters around the globe; and not only am I, for one, glad to read about it, I'm also glad to read that Spielberg isn't simply barreling into the project, sensibilities be damned (as Ridley Scott seems to have done right up to the last moment earlier this summer; which, fortunately, turned out fine since Kingdom of Heaven was pretty much ignored).

Meantime, Spielberg might not have passed the same memo to the Los Angeles Times, but despite all the supposed secrecy, his representative, Marvin Levy, is on hand to talk to Rachel Abramowitz.

Back to the NYT: Ned Martel introduces a round-up of old TV shows on DVD, recommendations from NYT staffers, and new reviews:

• Manohla Dargis on The Beat That My Heart Skipped - more from Stuart Klawans in the Nation and Stephanie Zacharek in Salon - and The World. Again: Stuart Klawans; and Steve Erickson for Gay City News.

Related to the Beat: Lisa Bear interviews Jacques Audiard for indieWIRE and The Reeler listens to James Toback, "the only man to ever direct both Klaus Kinski and his daughter Nastassja."
• Stephen Holden on Rebound, Almost Brothers and Modigliani.

• Dana Stevens on Sex, Politics and Cocktails.

• And Laura Kern on Undead.

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung (and in German), Alex Rühle asks Björk all about Drawing Restraint 9, the music she's composed for it ("Wagner invented film music") and her role, which is not a dramatic one, though she and Matthew Barney do cut off each other's arms and legs, turn into whales and swim to Antarctica.

Also via Perlentaucher: Heinz Kersten looks back on the Moscow International Film Festival for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. And for more on that in English, see Olga Sobolevskaya's report for Novosti.

At Twitch, Josh Ralske finds Lu Chuan's Kekexili "austere, unsentimental, morally complex, and grimly realistic."

At the IFC Blog, Alison Willmore finds herself a bit underwhelmed by Park Chul-soo's Green Chair.

Slashdotters discuss Planet Tokyo's collection of stories on the state of the anime business.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has all the makings of the first in a projected series, i.e., a franchise. But the marketing for it, warns Charlotte Higgins, "will probably take place in the one place they might hope that their children could enjoy a respite from the turbid flood of commerce into which their children are increasingly swept: the classroom.... 'We want to combine the best in the world of entertainment with the best in the world of education,' says [Walden Media's Cary] Granat. Others might call it stealth marketing."

Also in the Guardian: Dorian Lynskey on Troy Duffy and Overnight; Tanya Gold can't find a superheroine to celebrate, and Peter Bradshaw gives WotW two out of five stars.

The New York Press presents a two-story cover package (JR Taylor and Jim Knipfel), a "Requiem for the Indies." Video outlets, that is, in NYC.

Also:

• Matt Zoller Seitz: "Romero's vision is Spielberg's turned inside out." More on both in the LA CityBeat: Luke Y Thompson and Andy Klein.

• Kate Crane on the "expertly shot, edited and narrated" March of the Penguins.

• Armond White: "In Rize, [David] LaChappelle's celebration of a new ghetto dance craze is teeth-gnashingly dubious."

"Wouldn't it be great if more movie stars were like George Clooney?" asks Anne Thompson in the Hollywood Reporter. "He's the modern model: He's too cool to demand a $20 million salary to prove his self-worth; he writes, directs and produces; and he expends his movie star capital to push for the things he believes in." That does seem rather remarkable these days.

Christopher Bray in the New Statesman: "[Robert] Mitchum was one of the first actors for whom less was more, and it can be hard to get a grip on precisely what he did in front of the camera.... Are we talking about acting, then, or rather a heightened sense of being? Is the biggest trick great actors pull to make us believe that, unlike the rest of us, they are content within their own skin?"

In the London Times, Sean Macaulay tells the stories behind the studio logos that appear before their features, from the Rank gong to the 20th Century Fox searchlights, from Columbia's Lady Liberty to Universal's globe, Paramount's mountain and MGM's Leo.

In the Independent, Hugh Brody issues a call "for anthropologists to work with filmmakers on films that are committed, first of all, to listening to what indigenous people have to say."

Aaron Dobbs and Lily Oei interview Bill Irwin for the Gothamist.

Movie City News prompts a return visit to McSweeney's:

• Dave Johnston: "How to Beat Off Invaders From Space; or, What to Do When the Aliens Come."

• David Ng: "An Open Letter to the Human Resources Department of the Superfriends."

• Andrew Golden: "An Episode of Star Trek Tediously Written for an Audience Entirely Composed of Remote Amazon Tribesmen."

IW editor Eugene Hernandez has five questions for Gregg Araki.

For the Telegraph, Sheila Johnston interviews Georges-Marc Benamou and Robert Guédiguian, the writer and director, respectively, of The Last Mitterand.

Grady Hendrix: "The Real Fantastic Film Fest (the festival started this year by folks fired from the Puchon Fantastic Film Fest) has its English-language site up and it's very strange looking."

Short shorts via the indieWIRE Insider: The DC Independent Film Festival Summer Series, July 7 through 21. And the Prized Pieces International Film & Video Festival, October 7 through 10: Got a screenplay? Submission details.

Online browsing tip. From the Boston Globe and its readers, snapshots from the set of The Departed. Via Cinema Strikes Back.

Online listening tips. M Valdemar's found iPod candy at Zombie Astronaut.

Online viewing tip #1. "Bench," Lowe's ad for Stella Artois. Brilliant. Via Coudal Partners, who've been up to it again themselves: "Equal."

Online viewing tip #2. A clip from MirrorMask. Best dressing sequence since the opening of Dangerous Liaisons. Via Quint at Ain't It Cool News.

Online viewing tips #3 and #4. "Why Close the G8?" and today's edition of Rocketboom, both via Matt Clayfield.

Posted by dwhudson at July 1, 2005 10:36 AM