Shorts, 2/28.

"The last real earthquake to hit cinema was David Lynch's Blue Velvet," writes Guy Maddin in a short piece for the Village Voice that resonates all over the place, the vortex of that resonance being, of course, Isabella Rossellini. A must-read, naturally.

Also in the Voice:

• Anthony Kaufman on the demise of Wellspring: "Blame it on corporate consolidation." Kaufman had many more points to make, but space in the Voice is scare these days; and that's what blogs are for. More on all this: The Reeler and gets Picturehouse prez Bob Berney's take.

• Ed Halter on Dave Chappelle's Block Party: "[T]his picture remains faithful to the underlying affability of both Chappelle and [director Michel] Gondry, orchestrating a feel-good homestyle vibe that, while peppered with moments of sly political commentary, never harshes its own, slightly bittersweet mellow."

• Michael Atkinson on Sorry, Haters: "What seems distastefully misjudged early on becomes part of a lurking pathology."

Ben Slater's book about the making of Saint Jack has got a cover and a blog: Kinda Hot.

"It comes as no surprise that the recent resurgence of neo-nationalist thought in Japan would find expression in cinema," writes Aaron Gerow for Japan Focus. Via Blake at Cinema Strikes Back, where David Austin reviews Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Loft - and finds the director's "heart is no longer in J-Horror" - and Lupin III: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy, a film that "simulates, with live-action and special effects, the world of a cartoon," albeit without the benefit of CGI, as it was made in 1974.

Adrian Martin writes a letter to WSWS, responding to Richard Phillips's piece appearing a little over a week ago, "'Progressive' Australian film critics denounce Spielberg's Munich": "[M]y stated reasons for disliking the movie are not at all the same as your average 'pro-Israel opponent.'" And Phillips replies.

Assaf Gavron has a good long talk with Terry Gilliam about the state of the film industry, and what's more, the state of the world in Haaretz. The occasion: Gilliam will be co-directing a show called Diabolo with Russian artist-clown-performer Slava Plolunin, playing for ten in Jaffa next month. Thanks, Ed!

To hear Liesl Schillinger tell it, you'd better not miss the restored Liza with a "Z" when it's broadcast on Showtime in April: "It has not been rebroadcast since 1973, and it amounts to a missing Fosse-Minnelli-Kander-Ebb (also the team behind Cabaret) classic." Of course, if you do miss it, it'll be out on DVD at more or less the same time. Also in New York, a Sopranos cover package.

Adam Green meets the Marble Faun of Grey Gardens. Also in the New Yorker, David Denby on Street Fight, Our Brand Is Crisis (more below) and Darwin's Nightmare.

James Wolcott: "V for Vendetta may be - why hedge? is - the most subversive cinematic deed of the Bush-Blair era, a dagger poised in midair." More from Devin Faraci at CHUD, via Jason Morehead.

Steven Snyder of the Downtown Express asks Matt Zoller Seitz about his feature debut, Home, screening at the Pioneer in NYC Thursday through March 8. Via Sujewa Ekanayake, whose own review is here.

Ryan Stewart: "Good Girl [directed by Sophie Fillières and featuring Emmanuelle Devos], like some other recent French comedies, focuses on the choices of a quirky, Rubenesque female who must run a gauntlet of even quirkier men in the hopes of discovering the bliss of urban couplehood."

Catherine Breillat is set to direct Asia Argento. Todd has details at Twitch.

"After eight features and more than 100 shorts that have made him a favorite of museum and underground festival programmers, James Fotopoulos is embarking on his first commercial production," writes Ed M Koziarski for Reel Chicago. Via Ray Pride at Movie City Indie; and if you've never read Ray's 2003 profile of Fotopoulos, do.

Harry Knowles gets a phone call from James Cameron: "Jim has been constructing a Virtual Production Studio completely unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. Within that space are two separate teams concurrently prepping and getting ready to shoot back to back essentially over a 3 year span, Battle Angel Alita and Avatar."

Boyd van Hoeij at europeanfilms.net: "Greek-Italian actress Valeria Golino keeps herself busy: she has no less than six new films in the pipeline for 2006, many for first-time directors."

"The 2006 Eagle Awards ceremony, which took place in Warsaw yesterday evening, did not bring any surprises," writes Dorota Hartwich. "Six Eagle statuettes (out of eight nominations) were awarded to The Collector (Komornik) by Feliks Falk, for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Andrzej Chyra), Best Actress (Kinga Preis), Best Screenplay (Grzegorz ?oszewski) and Best Costume Design (Anna Wunderlich)." Also at Cineuropa, Fabien Lemercier has the list of winners of the Czech Republic's Lions. Festival favorite Something Like Happiness picked up seven, including Best Film, Best Director (Bohdan Slama), Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Tatiana Vilhelmova), Best Actor (Pavel Liska) and Best Supporting Actress (Anna Geislerová).

Outlook India reveals the winners of its Follywood Awards. Also via Perlentaucher's "Magazinrundschau," Erica Silverman on Paradise Now in Al-Ahram Weekly.

At Movie City News, Gary Dretzka argues that "a new sub-genre of crime movies has been built on the backs of 'feral' youths condemned at birth to life sentences in shanty towns, housing projects and barrios, from Glasgow to Rio de Janeiro."

Amina Taylor in the Guardian: "Manderlay was a litmus test of the film industry when it comes to black representation. The industry failed. It underlined the fact that black voices need to be more in control of telling their own stories if there is ever going to be a shift in celluloid stereotypes."

Stanley Kauffmann in the New Republic: "Among its virtues, it is an assurance to those of us who may fear that the Holocaust is becoming a film genre. A film as truthful, in every sense, as Fateless bursts through genre bounds to become itself."

"A History of Gay Cowboys," by Nathaniel R, via Gabriel Shanks.

In the New York Times:

• Dave Kehr: "The most beautifully rendered and emotionally resonant of the postwar Disney features, Lady and the Tramp arrives on DVD in a '50th Anniversary Edition' that does full justice to this classic of hand-drawn animation."

• Laura M Holson: "In what is the boldest venture yet by an established media company to insinuate itself into millions of cellphones, the News Corporation has created a mobile entertainment store called Mobizzo and a production studio to focus exclusively on developing cellphone entertainment in much the same way that 20th Century Fox creates movies and television." Rupert Murdoch "wants Mobizzo to be a global brand by the end of the year." Related yet 180 degrees different: The Mobile Content Festival.

• Sharon Waxman reports on Stacy Snider's move from Universal to DreamWorks.

Kim Morgan and Kevin Canfield are now blogging at MSN's movies filter.

An Apple bid for Disney? Probably not, say the 'xperts. Ellen Lee reports in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Online listening tip #1. Neda Ulaby on NPR: "Naomi Watts Wuz Robbed!"

Online listening tips #2 and #. Tsotsi director and star, Gavin Hood and Presley Chwenegayae, are guests on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Online viewing tips. Coudal Partners's "Film Feed," "links, mostly without comment, to interesting short films, musicvids, spots, trailers and the like. Think of it as CPTV for those who share our brutally short attention span."

Posted by dwhudson at February 28, 2006 6:07 PM