Long weekend shorts.

From January 20 through 26, Film Forum films by and about or in the general neighborhood of Melvin Van Peebles, a fine reason for a fine piece from Greg Tate in the Village Voice: "He continues to be the indomitable, upbeat, energetic workaholic he's always been.... This is especially the case with the new film, a project for which he's yet again done the unthinkable and recorded his audio track first - sound, narration, music, dialogue, the whole megillah - without an investor in sight."

Doug Cummings favorite catch at the Palm Springs International Film Festival this year so far is Alicia Scherson's "magnificent debut film about love and loss in contemporary Santiago," Play.

"As well as providing an extremely rare chance to revisit an example of portmanteau filmmaking that engaged the talents of the directors Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, Claude Lelouch and Chris Marker, the Dutch-born documentarist Joris Ivens and the American photographer William Klein, [Loin du Viêt-Nam] offers a reminder of how muted the opposition to the present war in Iraq has been, by comparison with the chorus of anger that eventually helped to undermine the American government's belligerence," writes Richard Williams.

Also in the Guardian:

• "The Museum of Cinema is now among the homeless of Moscow this winter," laments Ronald Bergan. "'It's a typical story of post-Communist Russia where property speculation and financial interests override everything else,' said Naum Kleiman, the inspirational director of the museum." The building's been sold to a developer who has plans for a casino and strip club. World-renowned directors, critics and even ex-German chancellor Gerhard Schröder have protested to no avail.

• Blake Morrison presents a historical primer for Making History: Art and Documentary in Britain from 1929 to Now, an exhibition at the Tate Liverpool from February 3 through April 23.

• John Patterson begs rock and rap stars to stay off the big screen.

• And the Review runs excerpts from Kurt Vonnegut's memoir, A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W Bush's America.

"I was on the Observer during the later 1960s, as our senior writers vainly warned the West that Palestinian suffering and desperation would become a spreading cancer," writes Neal Ascherson, who does express some frustration with Munich, but: "It's in pride and love that, through this film, [Spielberg] asks what has become of that ancient Israel which invented righteousness and reverence for law and how long a nation can survive which believes it must take because nothing will be given."

Also, Mark Kermode on Capote and In Cold Blood, on journalistic irresponsibility and the horrific banality of most serial killers. And Nick Greenslade reviews Altman on Altman: "The difficulty facing David Thompson in his interviews with Robert Altman is that the Hollywood director's films are notoriously hard to categorize."

In the wake of a screening of Sátántangó, Waggish scopes out a spot for Béla Tarr: "Tarr is too often compared to Tarkovsky, when the two are almost polar opposites, and not just in their view of humanity.... There is a bit of Bresson in the tableaux, but the influence of (late) Carl Dreyer is more apparent in their lack of flash.... But the decentralization of the people from these scenes comes from another source entirely: Antonioni." Via Zach Campbell.

One of the reasons movies are longer these days, suggests Dave Kehr, is the ease with which editing digitally makes it possible to drop all sorts of shots into scenes: "Paradoxically, an increased running time seems to require an increased agitation within scenes - a barrage of often pointless shots that exist, not to convey information, but to physically stimulate the spectator's nerve endings - producing violent, exaggerated rhythms, serving up a psychedelic flood of colors and textures that are often optically exciting but intellectually and emotionally vacant."

Mike Hale assures New York Times readers that some anime series are actually pretty good. And Charles Solomon scans Twitch readers' reactions to the news that Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro, will be directing Studio Ghibli's adaptation of Ursula K LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea.

Also: To accompany an awards season slide show depicting Ralph Fiennes wearing his trousers rolled (but not necessarily growing old), Lynn Hirschberg talks to the actor about clothes.

Sundance interviews to catch up with at indieWIRE: Andrucha Waddington (The House of Sand) and Joseph Mathew (Crossing Arizona).

Christopher Campbell at Cinematical: "It took me three invites over a few months before I decided to attend a screening for On the Outs, mainly because I expected a cheap, badly acted and preachy little film, and then I only went because it was feeling like a squeaky wheel sounds. Well, it got my oil in the form of respect and praise. Hopefully you won't need me to tell you three times to see it."

Nathan Kosub in Stop Smiling on 2046: "Wong's picture is the perfect counterpoint to Linklater's [Before Sunset]: no two directors so clearly differentiate memory from time, time from memory."

Ray Pride's roundup at Movie City News: "Match Point, Munich, Caché, Innocence, Runin, and conversations with Marc Levin about The Protocols of Zion and Richard Shepard about the giddy, profane Matador."

Mike Russell: "Okay. So The Matador doesn't work. But I'm actually embarrassed for Hoodwinked."

For Jeffrey Wells, Down to the Bone is "a profoundly honed and life-like low-budgeter about a mom with two kids coping with drug addiction, and Vera Farmiga, who plays this withered young woman like she's not playing her at all, is the absolute shit."

Berlinale press release: "The first films in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino programme are a surprise package of recent German cinema: they include Franka Potente's directorial debut, a silent film, road movies and melodramas taken straight from life, and a documentary film about a distant world that is still so near."

"Despite studio attempts to prevent leaks online this year, and the threat of jail time and steep fines for movie pirates, at least four screeners are on file-sharing networks already." In Slate, Xeni Jardin reveals how those who leaked them might be caught - even though some 'xperts believe the studios still might have trouble arguing a case against them. For accompanying images, see Boing Boing.

"What happens when theory finds itself outwitted by cultural objects themselves?" asks Nick Rombes. "McSweeney's, no 11 (2003; edited by Dave Eggers) includes a DVD whose contents are made up entirely of deleted, extra-deleted, behind the scenes of deleted scenes, and outtakes from the deleted scenes..." For PopMatters, Roger Holland reviews the latest DVDs aimed at kids.

New York's Pioneer Theater might get a bit rowdy next month. Andrew WK will present Andrew WK: Who Knows? on February 3 and 4 and Malcolm McDowell will present Evilenko on February 6.

Online listening tip #1. Werner Herzog is a guest on Fresh Air. Related: Vince Keenan, who found Grizzly Man "the most dense film I've seen in ages," would disapprove, but all the kids are clicking it, so you can't be left in the dark: Grizzly Bear Man, a spoof from Travis and Jonathan.

Online listening tips #2 and #3. On DVD Talk Radio, Geoffrey Kleinman talks with Alex Gibney, director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Craig Brewer, director of Hustle & Flow.

Posted by dwhudson at January 15, 2006 8:12 AM