GreenCine Daily: Shorts and fests.

October 3, 2005

Shorts and fests.

Playwright August Wilson has died too young at 60. Nick Davis: "A contentious and sometimes intractable figure, he was also creative and determined in seeing his ideas through to an American stage that badly needed him, and continues to need him." And the New York Times has set up a multimedia collection of reviews, articles and tributes.

Brian: "I've only seen a small fraction of the dozens of "Blankumentaries" this Florida-born, now Berkeley-residing filmmaker has made, but so far they all absolutely fall into the description on the front page of his website, 'Real Food, Roots Music and People Full of Passion for what they do.' Always For Pleasure perhaps the most quintessentially so."

In the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, a team of doctors accuses Hollywood of "irresponsibility over its portrayal of sex and drugs," reports Sarah Boseley. Biggest complaint: Condoms are rarely even mentioned in movies, much less put to use. Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw responds: "So why no condoms? Well, in art as in life, they are a bit of a downer."

Also in the Guardian: James Silver dissects a "rave, go-see quote" on the poster for Guy Ritchie's new one and discovers, "basically, the Revolver-related content on the Sun's website is a piece of PR puff paid for by the film's distributors."

When Truman Capote went to Kansas to investigate the murder of the Clutter family, he went under the aegis the New Yorker. David Denby wouldn't want you to forget that. Also: Christopher Buckley's comic take on "the Voice of the Caliphate."

Fests:

Beyond the Rocks

Another New York Times NYFF roundup: Three Times, The President's Last Bang, Who's Camus Anyway?, Beyond the Rocks and Paradise Now.
Peter Sobczynski previews the Chicago International Film Festival for Hollywood Bitchslap.
War rages through Joanne Laurier's report on the Toronto International Film Festival, the third part of the WSWS series.

Acquarello: "Filmed during American postwar occupation, The Ball at Anjo House is a curiously atypical Japanese film that hews eerily closer to the privileged, dysfunctional families and moral abandon of The Magnificent Ambersons or a Douglas Sirk melodrama than a Shochiku middle-class shomin-geki."

Chuck Tryon: "I'm not sure that I'm ready to make any larger claims about the film at this point, other than to say that I know many of the film's images will haunt me for some time. Chain is an amazing achievement and deserves a much wider audience."

At Cinematical, Robert Newton interviews Charles Band, "the most prolific filmmaker you've never heard of."

David Wester explains his project for the fall season: "From October 1st to January 1st, I will be watching one movie per day and blogging about my reactions to these movies here."

The Weinstein Company officially opens its doors for business today. Eugene Hernandez reports at indieWIRE.

Back to the NYT:

Jeannette Catsoulis: "Striving to be a mockumentary and succeeding only in establishing an idea for one, The Rodnees: We Mod Like Dat! is messy, unfunny and unforgivably dull."
Ken Belson: "Recognizing that a split over the format of the next generation of digital video discs is deepening, Paramount Pictures said yesterday that it will make DVD movies in the Blu-ray format as well as in the HD DVD standard."
Bill Carter notes that Lost and Desperate Housewives still rule the small screen.

Mike D'Angelo has had a little more than movies on his mind lately.

Karin Wehn and Ingo Linde follow up on their August piece at Telepolis on flip books. In German.

Online listening tip. David Cronenberg was the guest on Elvis Mitchell's The Treatment on Wednesday. I'm just now catching up with this one because, for me, the show's usual time slot (yes, I'm one of those dorks at the gym with the white buds in his ears) was taken up with Ed Champion's engaging conversation with Bret Easton Ellis. More words with Cronenberg (to read): Peter Sobczynski for Hollywood Bitchslap.