August 8, 2005

Shorts, 8/8.

Young Frankenstein Chris Mooney has had it with Hollywood's recycling of the Frankenstein myth and says so in the American Prospect: "The trouble is that the argument against 'playing God' is frequently an anti-intellectual mantra used to stifle debate about new technologies, the epitome of fear-mongering."

"The political and intellectual climate in the United States... is one that is essentially hostile to the scientific conceptions that are illustrated with such power in March of the Penguins. Indeed, hostile not only to the conceptions one sees in [Luc] Jacquet's film, but toward science itself!" exclaims Noah Page at the World Socialist Web Site. And yet, the doc "has found a growing and receptive audience. Perhaps it is unwise to read too much into that, but it's a healthy and encouraging sign."

Jonathan Letham's site is up. You may know him from such pieces as "Serling," "The Killers," "The Drew Barrymore Stories" or "Donald Sutherland's Buttocks." Via Rake's Progress. And says Ed Champion: "Lethem's openness here (which appears inspired somewhat from Michael Chabon) is the right way for an author to run a website."

A lot of directors' commentaries aren't worth running the DVD through the player for again; but, starting with Roman Polanski and Robert Altman, Girish Shambu names a handful he's happy to listen to any time.

A Bittersweet Life Besides the now-usual roundups of Korean news, Twitch's X takes an in-depth look at A Bittersweet Life, finding it "tremendously fresh, giving new vigor to the Korean film noir."

Flickhead hitches a ride down memory lane with evocative yet critical takes on Bertrand Blier's Les Valseuses (known in the US as Going Places) and Richard Rush's Psyche-Out.

"In the more than thirty years between his best performances – opposite Jean Seberg in Lilith (1964) and in Ulee's Gold and The Limey in the late 90s – Peter Fonda cock-walked through many roles, adopting a hipster version of his father's easygoing gait and gazing at the world with a rebel's remove, usually through a nice pair of shades." Lawrence Levi samples Dirty Mary Crazy Larry and Race With the Devil for Stop Smiling.

Filmbrain's also on a 70s kick at the moment, recommending Slaughterhouse-Five. For one thing, "The casting is truly inspired - rather than settling for the big names (as [director George Roy] Hill did in every film leading up to and following this one), he instead chose actors who are living embodiments of the richly detailed characters from Vonnegut's novel." In short, " this is one of those films that a major studio would never touch today."

George Fasel wraps his re-viewing of Angels With Dirty Faces with a thought on Cagney: "To the degree that his gangster films worked, it was because his characters galvanized the audience, accomplished that tricky feat of making us pull for the bad guy while understanding he had to go down ultimately, a little like Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost."

The Thin Man The Thin Man series quickly topped Amazon's list of bestselling DVDs and, on the editorial page of the New York Times, Adam Cohen notes, "If it's surprising that 21st-century Americans find Nick and Nora so appealing, it's no more so than that [Dashiell] Hammett, a dedicated socialist with a very dark worldview, created them in the first place."

Also, David Carr: "They became brands of their own - Eisner, Ovitz, Semel, Diller, Katzenberg, Geffen and Guber - writ large on the wide screen they ruled.... But the days when company heads would offer notes on dialogue have been supplanted by a heads-up from the marketing guys about product placement and plot points that might help ancillary revenue." And in the Magazine, Clive Thompson files a longish piece on the machinima phenom, focusing on Red vs Blue.

Another economics lesson in Slate from Edward Jay Epstein: "The best-kept secret in Hollywood, especially from Wall Street, is that the movie studios' biggest profit center is not theatrical movies, or even DVD sales; it is TV licensing."

You can listen to Elvis Mitchell these days, but you don't often get much of a chance to read him anymore. In the Observer, he observes: "[N]o studio would stop making action films when they fail. Yet, films with minority casts - or movies about race - constantly have to prove themselves." The occasion is the UK run for Crash, which Liz Hoggard praises as a "rare cinematic event - a film that challenges audiences to question their own prejudices."

Also:

And in the Guardian: "Invasion fantasies, as the critic Ignatius F Clarke convincingly argues, are a sensitive register of a society's current nervousness." John Sutherland wonders what Nicole Kidman and Oliver Hirschbiegel have on their minds.

Bell, Book and Candle Skip Bewitched, David Thomson advises his readers in the UK, and instead, try to book yourself a double feature: Vertigo and Bell, Book and Candle. Also in the Independent: Cahal Milmo on plane crash survivor movies, a genre unto itself.

The true story behind The Great Raid is remarkable enough on its own, so director John Dahl was able to convince Miramax to stick to it. The reward so far has been approval from WWII vets, reports Hugh Hart in the San Francisco Chronicle. Related: Uri Lessing and Dan Lybarger interview Dahl for Hollywood Bitchslap.

At Movie City News, Leonard Klady argues that the Great Slump of 05 just isn't that big of a deal. Counter-point: Signandsight is running an English version of a piece that ran in Die Zeit a little over a week ago. For Georg Seeßlen, the crisis runs more deeply than can be read in numbers. It lies in the architecture of the multiplex, in the thinning of cinematic imagery, in the self-referentiality of the DVD - which, it turns out, may be where hope lies after all: "[C]inema might be able to reconquer itself."

In German: An update on the restoration of Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz from Franziska Prechtel in the Berliner Morgenpost. The project is costing nearly half a million dollars and will first be seen at the Berlinale in 2007, the 25th anniversary of RWF's death. Also via filmz.de, Spiegel Online remembers Ufa star Ilse Werner, who died last night. She was 84.

Get Rich or Die Tryin' "Jim Sheridan and 50 Cent can't have seen each other coming," marvels Amos Posner at PopMatters. But, "with no new actors to easily market to urban audiences - or to the white suburbanites who fawn over what they perceive as black culture, Hollywood has turned to a familiar fallback plan. When actual movie stars are in short supply, just look to the pop charts."

Meanwhile, Daniel Robert Epstein talks to Hustle & Flow star Terrence Howard for the SuicideGirls, while, for Time, Josh Tyrangiel chats with Andre Benjamin.

For the Age, Philippa Hawker looks back on the highlights of the Melbourne International Film Festival, while Jay Seaver gives the "Hollywood Bitchslap final grade" to the Fantasia Festival: "A."

For indieWIRE, Brian Brooks previews the Sarajevo Film Festival and Vanessa Romo listens in as Maggie Cheung talks acting.

"Ibrahim Ferrer, a leading voice with the hugely popular Buena Vista Social Club of vintage Cuban performers, died Saturday, his representative in Cuba said. He was 78." Anita Snow reports for the AP, Ben Ratliff pens an obit for the NYT and David Teather files one for the Guardian.

Online viewing tip #1. Matt Clayfield captures Adrian Martin discussing the state of the Australian film industry.

Online viewing #2. Manu Luksch's Movie Stars. Via the DVblog.

Murk More online viewing tips, round #1. At Twitch, The Gomorrahizer rounds up trailers for the Horror Theater series, "comprised of a half-dozen hour-long movies based on manga by Kazuo Umezu." You'll recognize the names of a few of the directors. Also: Todd's found the trailer for Anders Thomas Jensen's Mørke.

Online viewing tips, round #2. Animation by Joseph Seigenthaler. Via Screenhead.

Still bored? Play along with Reverse Shot's "empty, vitriolic exercise in spiteful contrarianism."



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Posted by dwhudson at August 8, 2005 12:27 PM