Shorts, 2/8.

Boyd van Hoeij has been following up on his coverage of Rotterdam with more reviews and interviews; the most recent stand-out has to be his talk with Raúl Ruiz: "I do not have something against American cinema per sé, but there is one thing that really bothers me, which is the presupposition that their films tell universal stories. Cinema is not universal... The reason I often jump from one genre or type of setting to another is that I fall in love with the setting; with Klimt, I fell in love with the Vienna of that time and wanted to tell a story set there. In order to be universal, a filmmaker should be very specific about the culture he portrays."

As Peter Bowen at Filmmaker points out, the new issue of Bookforum features an enticing batch of reviews of new books on film, but unfortunately, only one is online. Still: Tom Holert outlines the biographical and philosophical development of Edgar Morin, who, besides writing more than thirty books and "countless articles," made Chronique d'un été (Chronicle of a Summer) with Jean Rouch in 1960. Six years before, he wrote The Cinema, or The Imaginary Man, "now translated for the first time into English by Lorraine Mortimer... [T]he book plays an important role in the author's theory of the evolution of (Western) humanity in the age of mass-cultural engineerings of the soul." Also reviewed: The Stars.

As it happens, acquarello has just posted a review of Chris Marker's Le Joli Mai, inspired by Chronicle of a Summer, made just after the end of the Algerian War and imbued with "the elusive promise of peacetime following years of political agitation and terrorist insurgency... [T]he film serves, not only as an encapsulated document of the spirit of the times, but also a prescient prefiguration of the social turmoil - and ideological revolution - to come."

Signandsight notes that the Hungarian press is full of background pieces on István Szabó's collaboration with the secret police during the days of the communist regime. Also: Joseph Massad in Al-Ahram Weekly: "To a considerable extent Munich is having the same impact on American audiences, and is playing the same role, as Exodus did in legitimizing Israeli policies and the Zionist project."

"Valley of the Wolves Iraq, which is set to break Turkish box-office records, shows U.S. soldiers in Iraq as they raid a wedding, machine-gun the guests, and take survivors to a prison where a Jewish doctor removes their organs for rich people in the West. Subtle it ain't," writes Pelin Turgut in Time, "but Turks are in a frenzy over it." Via Movie City News. Grady Hendrix has found a full review on a listserv.

David Thomson in the Independent on the rivalry between the Mankiewicz brothers: "Joe was elated at winning directing Oscars for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve in successive years. But it ate away at him that history might still remember Herman as the Mankiewicz because Herman had written Citizen Kane."

In the New York Times:

• For Dave Kehr, Warner Home Video's release of Ryan's Daughter "is simply one of the most spectacular video presentations I have ever encountered, a marvel of pinpoint resolution and stable, saturated color." More on new DVDs from Susan King in the Los Angeles Times.

• Caryn James sees a trend: movies depicting ordinary people turned killers.

• And Nate Chinen sings praises of Dianne Reeves's performance on the soundtrack for Good Night, and Good Luck: "[I]n the spirit of cinéma vérité, she and her band recorded much of the soundtrack in character, while cameras rolled. The result, oddly enough, is the leanest, most instantly gratifying album of her career."

Which segues nicely into Kevin Jagernauth's piece on a few of the soundtracks the Academy is considering this year. Also at PopMatters, Mark H Harris: "[N]o film has retained my enduring ire like The Green Mile."

Ian Johnston at Not Coming to a Theater Near You: "[F]or all the estimable Iranian films that have centred on child protagonists - take as examples The Mirror (Jafar Panahi), The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf), the first story of The Day I Became A Woman (Marzieh Meshkini), or A Time For Drunken Horses (Bahman Ghobadi) - it's true that there's a host of others (the likes of Children of Heaven) that simply milk the sentimental potential of putting a poor little mite on the screen. And I have to say that there's a strong sense that this is what Mohsen Makhmalbaf is up to in The Silence."

At Koreanfilm.org, Adam Hartzell writes that, following Desire, "Kim [Eung-su]'s new film Way To Go, Rose! continues exploration of such 'dirty love' by further deconstructing several tropes of the romance genre."

At Twitch, Todd reviews Peter Chan's latest, with cinematography by Christopher Doyle: "The images on screen are simply stunning. Unfortunately, Perhaps Love is littered with so many other flaws that, pretty pictures or not, the film verges on unwatchable."

Andrew Huang in the International Edition of Newsweek on Jet Li's Fearless and the state of kung fu cinema in general: "In an age when talented mainstream actors like Chow Yun Fat and Ziyi Zhang can dance their way through spectacular action scenes with the aid of wire work and computer animation, action stars like Li and Jackie Chan - who made their names through sheer physical prowess - are being crowded out." Via Jason Morehead.

Jeffrey Overstreet: "The next movie that I will be raving and raving about, and exhorting everyone to get out and see, is the Oscar-nominated film out of Germany: Sophie Scholl: The Final Days."

Zach Campbell remembers Walerian Borowczyk: "[H]is cinema at its greatest is as mysterious and inscrutable, as keen and singular, as Bresson."

In the Village Voice:

• Michael Atkinson on Firewall: "The post-Die Hard genre is on its last legs, and the movie is as tired in its bones as [Harrison] Ford, who at 63 has crossed the line from robust, no-nonsense manliness to doughy-creepy grumpster."

• Tom Charity on Neil Young: Heart of Gold: "It's a sentimental show, sure, but Young's pantheistic hymns to family, friendship, and 'the time we share together' are nothing if not heartfelt. Turns out it's better to fade away after all."

• Jorge Morales on A Year Without Love: "Anahí Berneri's promising feature debut (based on Pablo Pérez's autobiographical novel) is at once unsentimental and sympathetic; she evinces rare insight into a gay man's life and sexuality without cringing, passing judgment, or wallowing in pity."

• And briefly: Elliott Stein on In a Glass Cage, J Hoberman Oh, Uomo (Oh, Man), Mark Holcomb on Final Destination 3 (more from Ed Gonzalez in Slant), Morales on Cowboy del Amor, Pete L'Official on Curious George, Matt Singer on Film Geek (more from Gonzalez in Slant) and R Emmet Sweeney on Through the Fire.

At indieWIRE, the Reverse Shot team takes on London, "a spittling, frothing, wallowing exercise in idiotic self-congratulatory pity screaming at the top of its lungs like a terrible toddler who wants his mommy's attention in a crowd" (Michael Koresky). More from Ed Park in the Voice and Ed Gonzalez at Slant.

Jeffrey Wells on Who Is Harry Nilsson... (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him): "[Director John] Scheinfeld does an excellent job of telling Nilsson's life story - I can't imagine a more comprehensive job - but so many rock 'no rollers have bought the farm early on due to drugs and booze that there's no tragic dimension to it."

Bryant Frazer runs a column of reviews his paper struck down.

Susan Gerhard on Why We Fight: "I know I get booed off the stage every time I offer up this idea; however, [Michael] Moore's short, sentimental damnation of democracy gone empire-mad in Bowling for Columbine — the Louis Armstrong "What a Wonderful World" montage — is worth a million minor moments of talking head confession. But please: If you are in any way unclear about the reason we are in a state of perpetual war for perpetual peace, don't let me dissuade you from seeing this film."

Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

• Kimberly Chun on Manderlay, and more specifically, Lars von Trier: "[H]e's becoming as jaundiced as an old-world aristo."

• Cheryl Eddy on Johnnie To's Breaking News.

• Michelle Devereaux remembers Shelley Winters.

Variety vs Blogs: The Reeler reports and opines.

Book vs Movie: Edward Copeland's scoreboard.

Craig Mazin vs Josh Olson: Mazin explains. Seriously, though, this is a meaty debate about the role of the screenwriter in the industry. Part II.

"Have we reached the point where a mastery of basic film grammar just doesn't matter?" asks Dave Kehr.

"The best rock documentaries are entirely fake, as anyone who has seen Spinal Tap will agree," writes Bob Stanley in the Guardian, where you'll also find these news items: re-teaming will be Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, playing lawyers "who toiled for 15 years to save a wrongly convicted murderer from death row," and Nicole Kidman and Baz Luhrmann, this time with Russell Crowe, too; and: "Catherine Hardwicke is to make a biopic of the Virgin Mary."

Peter Nellhaus remembers the movies he grew up with.

Nominations for the Skandies are in. Mike D'Angelo explains.

The Chlotrudis Society announces its nominations for the best indies of 2005.

Cinematical's Mark Beall interviews Bruce Campbell.

Ron Russell in the SF Weekly: "Six months into Al Gore's experiment to turn twentysomethings into TV news junkies, the former vice president's San Francisco-based cable channel - Current TV - appears to have hit a snag."

Among the articles I would read if I were an Atlantic subscriber: Benjamin Schwarz's review of American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now, edited by Phillip Lopate, and Clive Crook's "Capitalism: The Movie." The teasers for both tease well.

Lots of film news and interviews in the German papers today. See signandsight.

Online browsing tip #1. Sylvia Ballhause: Kino(T)räume.

Online browsing tip #2. Bombsite Boudiccas, Ken Russell's 1955 photo essay on London's Teddy Girls, via Screenhead.

Online listening tip. Criterion Collection founder and prez Peter Becker talks about Fellini's 8½ on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Online listening tips. For DVD Talk Radio, Geoffrey Kleinman interviews Right at Your Door director Chris Gorak, The Descent director Neil Marshall, The Aristocrats director Paul Provenza and talks with Gilbert Gottfried about Gilbert Gottfried: Dirty Jokes.

Online viewing tip #1. At Gpod, Anton Giulio Bragaglia's Thaïs, "possibly the only surviving full-length Futurist film with a copy allegedly preserved (although, alas, all but unseen) in the Cinémathèque Francaise."

Online viewing tip #2. "I should have known that inviting Tom Ford to oversee this year's Hollywood Issue would create a chorus of office lore many octaves higher than the shrill solos that form the usual monthly soundtrack." Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter introduces a surefire seller. At the site, video from the cover photo session. The real star here, of course, is Annie Leibovitz. Commentary: Anthony Kaufman.

Online viewing tip #3. Drawn! points to a page at United Airlines featuring their Super Bowl ad, Dragon and a making-of clip featuring director Jamie Carliri, "who also brought us the brilliant closing credit sequence from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events."

Online viewing tip #4. Sleepless in Seattle. The thriller. Via Anne Thompson.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Spike Jonze's Miller Auditions, six in all, full-length. Via Coudal Partners.

Online viewing tips, round 2. Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay points to Jim Helton's Blue Coup D'Etat and the site for BorderLine Films; both call for a bit of time to explore.

Online viewing tips, round 3. Scenes of Provincial Life. Michael Szpakowski: "A couple of years ago, I started making tiny QuickTime movies, as a kind of moving image dream diary... I guess I was a vlogger avant la lettre so it seems appropriate to present them now as a vlog." Via Nathaniel Stern at Rhizome.

Posted by dwhudson at February 8, 2006 4:29 PM