Shorts, 10/9.

"Movies, like the books Truffaut read, were not really a choice after childhood; both had been a part of his life too long. But they are not essential, either, at least in the way that romantics value. He did not 'escape' into films, as so many moviegoers do. Too often that sort of flight is synonymous with absolution - a blank slate empty of the rest of the day." Nathan Kosub in Stop Smiling, which has just released its "Auteur Issue" with three different covers.

Two somewhat related reviews by J Hoberman have popped up at the Village Voice site. He seems to have enjoyed reading Jerry Lewis's new book, Dean & Me (A Love Story), but not so much Atom Egoyan's noirish riff on the story in Where the Truth Lies. Also: The President's Last Bang.

To the accompaniment of Bernard Herrmann's suite from Vertigo, Flickhead recalls two very different viewings.

Jon Lebowsky is pleased to see a new site from Participant Productions, Participate: "Currently the site has a couple of campaigns... "Report it Now," which is aligned with Good Night and Good Luck, and "Host a North Country Community Discussion." It'll be interesting to see what the site's like when it gets busy, which should be any minute now..."

"Released in France last year, Le Grand Voyage played in cinemas for six months simply on word of mouth," writes Maya Jaggi, who talks with Ismaël Ferroukhi, the director of the first feature to be shot inside Mecca. "It won the 2004 Luigi de Laurentiis award at Venice, and went to film festivals from Belgium to Argentina. More than 4,000 people watched it on a giant screen in Marrakech's Djemaa el Fna square, with 'tourists and everybody, some who had never been in a cinema, mixing in the crowd.'"

Also in the Guardian and Observer:

• Justine Picardie: "[I]t's going to be hard to let go of my own imaginary version of Narnia: a world that seemed entirely real to me, and millions of others, when I discovered CS Lewis's books in childhood."

• You've got to be willing to fall on your face once in a while." Dan Halpern meets that earnest risk-taker, Ethan Hawke.

• Lindesay Irvine listens to Ridley Scott explain what he was after in Kingdom of Heaven - and note that, even though it didn't play in the US, it did in the Arab world. Made money, too.

• "Well, I wouldn't want to be highfalutin enough to pretend to be ordinary," Tilda Swinton tells Gaby Wood.

• Peter Bradshaw on Oliver Twist: "[A] decent, watchable film, not obviously more powerful or personal than a teatime-telly version. It is an adaptation with gusto and spirit, content to let the central story do the work, having had a thicket of minor characters and subplots chopped out." More from Philip French, from a more enthusiastic James Christopher in the London Times, Rosie Millard in the New Statesman, Sukhdev Sandhu in the Telegraph and from Anthony Quinn in the Independent, where Paul Vallely traces the history of a debate: "[I]t is what many have seen as the anti-Semitism running through Dickens's depiction of the menacing figure of Fagin that has made [the novel] most controversial."

• Simon Garfield: "Despite his contributions to many fine pieces of work, including, most recently, Alan Bennett's The History Boys, it is still very difficult for those who have seen Withnail & I to see Richard Griffiths as anyone but Uncle Monty, the lascivious homosexual aesthete who desires to have his way in an isolated farmhouse with a young actor played by Paul McGann."

• Michael Billington is amazed by how little noise in being made in England as Harold Pinter turns 75; but there'll be quite a bash in Dublin. Joining in the festivities: Michael Gambon, Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi, John Hurt, Stephen Rea, Penelope Wilton, Tom Stoppard, Frank McGuinness and Conor McPherson.

• James Harkin meets Slavoj Zizek: "Typically, his soft spot for both Leninism and Christianity is a deliberate kick against the tide of the times."

Reviewing the Directors Label Series at Pitchfork, Stephen M Deusner lists "three crucial criticisms that have dogged music videos since the Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' aired on cable 24 years ago: that these short clips are faddishly disposable, that their visuals remain necessarily secondary to the music even as they detract from the listening experience, and that music videos are works of commerce, not art. What makes music video direction a dubious profession, however, also makes the medium a potentially exciting art form defined by the cross-pollination of ideas and approaches from various disciplines."

In the LA CityBeat, Chris Morris on Punk: Attitude, "the most recent entry in a now-ongoing flood of historical docs about the Golden Age of Punk Rock. I'd heard the picture was good, and figured [Don] Letts, the Clash's longtime DJ and pal, probably knew what he was talking about. So I popped the thing on, and was immediately overtaken by a familiar sense of nausea."

Nick Hasted: "You can see why rappers would be deemed ideal movie stars. Not only verbally facile, they also often rely on aliases as crafted as any actor's."

Also in the Independent:

• Chris Sullivan interviews an Anna Friel hoping she's on the verge of breaking out.

• Craig McLean profiles Orlando Bloom.

• David Thomson on Whiskey Galore! and its director, Alexander Mackendrick.

In the Telegraph, Sheila Johnston recalls meeting Bill Murray in Cannes and asks David Gordon Green why he's watched Deliverance "more than any other movie." Also: David Rennie reports on a short from Unicef depicting Smurfs' village getting the blue bombed out of it by screaming warplanes.

Matt Feeney's guilty pleasures: Devil's Advocate, Cruel Intentions and Wild Things. Also at Slate: David Edelstein: "Elsewhere in this magazine, Jack Shafer has brought such fine, principled skepticism to bear on the historical foundation of George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck that my case for it will no doubt seem lightweight. Here goes: It's a damn good movie!" More from Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times, Stuart Klawans in the Nation and Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat.

The only thing this has to do with movies is the fact that John Rogers writes them. Other than that, it's simply a chat over mozzarella sticks that betters a bunch of guys talking about tips and Madonna.

Boston's Brattle is in trouble. The cinetrix urges: "Give til it hurts, people."

Now open for exploration: Ingmar Bergman Face to Face: "English version to be launched in January 2006. Meanwhile, browse the site anyway! Even if you don't understand Swedish, it'll be fun." As Matt Langdon points out at Rashomon, there are plenty of pix.

In the New York Times:

• AO Scott on why the well-to-do like to see themselves in deep, dark trouble in films such as Caché and Manderlay: "Feeling bad about ourselves can become a way of affirming our own goodness, a sign of moral virtue and political concern that costs nothing more than the price of a ticket."

• Sylviane Gold talks with Glenn Close about her new "life in the indies."

• "My film is emotional rather than meta, and that's my rebellion." Noah Baumbach answers Deborah Solomon's questions.

• According to a recent survey, men 25 and under, "the one audience [Hollywood] has pursued most ardently for at least two decades," are seeing fewer movies. Sharon Waxman reports. Also: Shake-up at Paramount Classics.

• So the Weinstein Company is up and running. "And if all goes according to an early version of their business plan, the new movie studio will be profitable by 2007, putting out 25 movies a year, and generating annual revenue of $1.9 billion." David M Halbfinger and Andrew Ross Sorkin report.

• Halbfinger talks with director Marc Levin about his documentary, Protocols of Zion, in which he "sets out to understand what he sees as a surge in anti-Semitism since 9/11."

Reviews:

• Manohla Dargis on Curtis Hanson's In Her Shoes: "[T]he joy of this unassuming, generous film is that it never sells out its characters' desires or ours." More from Stephanie Zacharek in Salon. Also: Two for the Money, "a sincere and sincerely turgid male weepie with Matthew McConaughey, Al Pacino and Rene Russo."

• Stephen Holden on the "witless farce," Waiting..., Mark Milgard's "promising filmmaking debut," Dandelion, and the "deadpan, intermittently funny investigation of a group of desperately dorky frozen-food collectors," Never Been Thawed.

• Ned Martel: "A Tale of Two Pizzas lays the cheese on way too thick." Also: Daniel Peddle's "novel, accomplished documentary," The Aggressives.

• Jeannette Catsoulis: "Life, Translated is what Mean Girls might have looked like had the director been required to seek approval from the Chinese Film Authority." Also: Dennis Gansel's "intensely beautiful film," Before the Fall.

• For Laura Kern, The Gospel "endeavors to be a powerful tale of faith and forgiveness, but in the end fails to capture even the slightest essence of spirituality and religious belief."

"2005 is proving to be a vintage year for American indie films," declares Newsweek's David Ansen. Via Movie City News.

The newsweeklies are taken with a "supernova duo": Time's Lev Grossman listens in as Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick banter; Newsweek's Marc Peyser has the more straightforward, shortish piece.

"[B]y filming his sci-fi feature film debut, Serenity, in town, [Joss Whedon] found himself something of a local hero, one of a growing number of people who are fighting to keep Hollywood in Hollywood," writes Mary McNamara in the LAT.

Also:

• Susan King: "[John] Wayne is one of those actors critics turn up their noses at, proclaiming he was just playing himself. But as Leonard Maltin and western historian Frank Thompson state in their audio commentary for Hondo, Wayne may have been a 'personality,' but he was also a highly underrated actor."

• R Kinsey Rowe on why the battle for Duma may be just about over.

• Mark Swed reviews Isabelle Huppert's US stage debut in a production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychose.

• Among those reading from Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's new compilation, Voices of a People's History of the United States, before a live (and evidently enthusiastic) audience the other night: Viggo Mortensen, Sandra Oh, Marisa Tomei, Josh Brolin and Danny Glover. Steven Barrie-Anthony reports.

Mark H Harris tousles Samuel L Jackson's hair at PopMatters.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tops a Total Film poll of the greatest horror flicks of all time. The BBC reports.

In the Hollywood Reporter:

• Gregg Kilday is so intrigued by Luis Mandoki's Innocent Voices, "set entirely in one small village in El Salvador caught in the crossfire of the 1980s civil war," that he traces the film's origins.

• Gregory McNamee reviews Kaleem Aftab's Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It.

• If you appeared in Lord of the Rings, you're probably doing very well right now, notes Anne Thompson.

For those who read German: Two pieces on Fassbinder in new filmkritik für lange texte, one from Harun Farocki, the other from Diedrich Diederichsen. Via filmtagebuch.

Both Franka Potente and Heike Makatsch have written books, as filmz.de notes.

HD-DVDs might not be encumbered with region codes. Slashdotters discuss. Meantime, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, Cory Doctorow: "Me, I say they all suck ass."

Scott Kirsner at CinemaTech the other day: "'Why won't Hollywood give us any of their content to play with?' That was the major theme of yesterday’s 'Future of Entertainment' panel at the Web 2.0 conference."

Online browsing tip. The Warhol: Time Capsule 21. Via Benj Gerdes at Eyebeam's reBlog.

Online listening tip. On NPR's World Cafe, David Dye hosts the Kronos Quartet, talking about their collaboration with Bollywood legend Asha Bhosle on a collection of compositions by her late husband, RD Burman, You've Stolen My Heart.

Online viewing tip. 1st Ave Machine's oddly animated plant life. Via Boing Boing.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Drawn! points to a couple of winners in the music video category at the Ottowa International Animation Festival.

Online viewing tips, round 2. "That people aren't widely declaring Frenchman Michel Ocelot the next Miyazaki is a mystery to me," writes Todd at Twitch, who points to the trailer for Kirikou and the Wild Beasts. Also, logboy notes that there's a bit to watch trailer-wise at Showtime's site for its Masters of Horror series, with evidently more to come soon. You'll recognize a few of the names behind the 13 hour-long installments. In a similar vein, The Gomorrahizer points to trailers for the Tales of Terror collection, featuring contributions by eight Japanese directors.

Online viewing tips, round 3. "Reading Hitchcock at Work got the ball rolling and making Kite Circuit clinched the deal. I've had such a wonderful week." Matt Clayfield has kept a video log of the production of his latest short, currently scheduled for a December release.

Posted by dwhudson at October 9, 2005 12:00 PM