Shorts, 9/13.

"You'll never keep up." True, true. Alison Willmore explains at the IFC Blog. More on all that later, I suppose. Meantime...

In Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee talks to Astra Taylor about her approach to making Zizek! - but not before telling us how he would have done it; and actually, that's a double feature I'd like to see. Via Chuck Tryon.

JG Ballard: "[Aleksandr] Sokurov is a noted documentary maker, and The Sun resembles a dream-like newsreel filmed by a secret camera deep in the emperor's bunker... [Hirohito] resembles a royal figure rather closer to home: well-meaning, babied by his wife and utterly disengaged from reality." But what Ballard's really concerned with are the absurd origins of the war he witnessed from an internment camp in Shanghai.

Sharon Waxman: "Louisiana faces a daunting challenge to convince Hollywood producers, who were lured to the state in recent years by generous tax incentives, to continue bringing their productions here." And: Wheeling and dealing gets out of hand in Toronto as both Fox Searchlight and Paramount Classics claim to have snapped up Thank You for Smoking. More on the mix-up from David Poland.

Also in the New York Times: "[C]onservative groups have turned [March of the Penguins's] stirring depiction of the mating ordeals of emperor penguins into an unexpected battle anthem in the culture wars," reports Jonathan Miller, and Dave Kehr on new DVDs.

In the New Republic, Stanley Kauffmann reviews the "lively, long, intelligent" One Bright Shining Moment, a portrait of George McGovern that is "in a way painful: we feel very distanced from him today. The title is not a misnomer."

Are you now or have you ever been an environmentalist? That's more or less the question Brian asks James Benning.

For Rolling Stone, Austin Scaggs talks to Jonathan Demme about the Neil Young doc he's just shot. Via SXSW's Daily Chord.

The Toronto Star's Martin Knelman talks with Sydney Pollack about his Sketches of Frank Gehry; and catches Gehry himself on the phone as well. Via MCN.

DVD Talk's Ian Jane interviews Kim Ki-duk.

With his "Fall Movie Preview Review," The Reeler reminds us all why we're so glad indieWIRE's brought him to our attention.

David Thomson is, of course, right to point out in the Independent that Brokeback Mountain is not the first gay cowboy movie. But what a strange sense of humor that man has.

While explaining how indies get financed in Slate, Edward Jay Epstein notes an ironic development. In the sort of second-tier system that has evolved, stars willingly place themselves in the position, albeit temporarily, that the old studio system boxed its stars into.

Writing in PopMatters, Amos Posner explains why he's not buying into "the sudden and ubiquitous idea that [Tom] Cruise was nothing special in the first place, that his body of work is fungible and his talent replaceable."

Time's Richard Corliss: "Garbo didn't represent a different sex from men. She was a different species, an emissary from a higher world of thought and feeling."

Andrew and Virginia Stone. An appreciation from Flickhead.

Revisit Renoir and Ray with Filmbrain, Pasolini with the cinetrix, Diabolique with Jenny Jediny at Not Coming to a Theater Near You.

Bruce Lee is posthumously reuniting the Muslims, Serbs and Croats of the Bosnian city of Mostar, as Reuters reports. Via Opus.

This is really not a very smart move on Garrison Keillor's part. At all. By his own account - and I've met the man, he's trustworthy - Rex Sorgatz is playing this as fair as can be. But Keillor... Sheesh.

Reunited (probably): Scorsese and DiCaprio (BBC) and Depp and Gilliam (Cinematical's Robert Newton).

The MPAA and RIAA "have joined the Internet2 consortium as corporate members," reports Antone Gonsalves for TechWeb.

It's been very nearly a year now since Jonathan Marlow spoke with Robert M Young about, among many other things, his most recent film, Human Error. Since it screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival last October, we haven't heard much about it - until now. It'll open at Landmark's Sunshine Cinema in New York on Friday.

In San Francisco and looking for something do on the weekend? A Mighty Ruckus at Islais Creek. Saturday, noon to 8 pm - and free.

Online listening tip #1. Bond. James Bond. Via Coudal Partners.

Online listening tip #2. The BBC's Hitchcock snippets. Via Ian Dawe at Mindjack. There's more to listen to there, too: David Lean, Robert Altman and Mike Leigh, for example.

Online viewing tip. Mitch Benn: "Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now."

Posted by dwhudson at September 13, 2005 3:34 PM