Weekend shorts.

At Twitch, Todd, who also reviews "Thai comic fantasy epic" In The Name of the Tiger and Takashi Miike's Osaka Tough Guys, passes along info on Apichatpong Weerasethakul's next one, Utopia.

At Koreanfilm.org, Kyu Hyun Kim talks with producer Lee Choon-yun, whose rock-solid commitment to the Whispering Corridors series has paid off handsomely over the years both commercially and artistically," and actress Cha Ye-ryun, "making her debut in Voice as the ill-fated psychic girl Cho-ah, projecting a distinctively feline and mysterious aura."

In the New York Times:

• Dennis Lim talks with Kelly Reichardt about her remarkable film, Old Joy - and to Jonathan Raymond, who co-wrote the screenplay and the short story the film's based on. He describes it as "'a second-term kind of movie,' referring to the Bush presidency. 'There is a point when anger turns to ruefulness,' he said."

• "[A] Spike Lee film is often more impressive at second glance than it was at first," writes Caryn James. "A look back at his career, freed from received opinions and skewed memories, shows that major works like Do the Right Thing hold up. And some underappreciated gems emerge, like the nuanced Jungle Fever (1991), about an interracial romance, and the audacious Bamboozled (2000), his satirical take on a contemporary minstrel show." Related: Lesley O'Toole interviews Lee for the Guardian.

• Charles McGrath introduces a scene from what is "in many ways the quintessential indie film," Rian Johnson's Brick, "built around a genuinely inspired conceit — the notion of setting an old-fashioned noirish detective story in a contemporary Southern California high school."

Jean-Pierre Melville's Army in the Shadows is "a great film," writes Richard Vinen, but it has "made curiously little impact on French cinema." Vinen looks into the reasons why. Also in the Guardian: "For many celebrities, conspiracy theories are the VIP rooms of history." Marina Hyde notes that Charlie Sheen is banging on the door.

The subjects of two widely praised docs, Townes Van Zandt: Be Here to Love Me and William Eggleston in the Real World have more in common than you might think, notes Sam Sweet for Stop Smiling.

At WSWS, Joanne Laurier on Edvard Munch: "[Peter] Watkins< indicates that Munch's psychological self-examination was not merely an individual endeavor, but reflected something significant about the growing self-awareness of a new age."

David Austin at Cinema Strikes Back on Michele Soavi's Uno Bianca: "What it gives up in sheer, over-the-top violent spectacle it gains in cool intelligence."

Guillermo Arriaga, who wrote Amores Perros, 21 Grams and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, tells Alastair Sooke what impresses him about Fatih Akin's Head-On: "You don't notice the photography or the soundtrack. You're immersed in the lives on screen more than in the cinematic experience."

Also in the Telegraph, Sheila Johnston: "Plenty of filmmakers are plucked from obscure independent origins and placed at the helm of big-budget action movies. But there is also a growing, and more surprising, reverse trend: well-respected, comfortable directors who feel compelled to return to their gritty - and sometimes downright avant-garde - roots."

"[W]hat one does not see can be more important than what one does, especially when what is seen is so unreliable and ambiguous." Leo Goldsmith on both Frankenstein and Spirit of the Beehive.

Adam Walter's been considering the difference between "films that scare you and films that disturb you in some deep way." Via Jeffrey Overstreet.

Thank You for Smoking reflects the conservative views of Christopher Buckley, argues Ben Adler In the American Prospect: "[A]musing as it was, the film left me with the strange feeling of having just seen Ayn Rand for Dummies."

"[I]t's no longer a mystery to me that people can express such intense feelings of unbridled venom because they came across a movie review (a movie review!) that revealed feelings not correspondent with their own," writes Toronto Star film critic Geoff Pevere. "This is an era of coarsened discourse and blunt response, an alleged frontier of new democracy in which the guns and ammo are free and ample and easy to use." Via Movie City News, where Gary Dretzka writes, "Stylistically and thematically, Stoned can stand as a companion piece to Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's Performance, a twisted little thriller from 1970 that featured [Anita] Pallenberg, Mick Jagger and James Fox."

SFist's Eve interviews Wim Wenders. Also: Emily reviews Linda Linda Linda.

Two more SXSW reviews at Cinematical: Jette Kernion on Jumping Off Bridges, a film "at its best during the small moments," and Karina Longworth on the "fairly phenomenal" loudQUIETloud.

You may have heard that Randy Quaid is suing the producers of Brokeback Mountain, claiming he was duped into thinking it'd be "a low-budget, art-house film," which is why he waived his usual fee. At the IFC Blog, Alison Willmore gathers reactions from Eugene Hernandez, Ty Burr and David Poland.

Meanwhile, Filmmaker's Peter Bowen posts a followup from James Schamus to the exchange between the Brokeback producer and Daniel Mendelsohn, who reviewed the film for the New York Review of Books.

With all this talk of Brokeback, you'd think the world's forgotten which movie actually took the big prize barely three weeks ago. Not Dave Kehr: "Turning bad writing into a metaphysical principle is indeed an accomplishment, and one that might well deserve an award - though Best Picture of 2005 is going a bit too far."

The Reeler catches Andrew Sarris "all but calling it in with quotes lifted (verbatim in some cases) from Film Forum's program notes for its current Don Siegel series."

Gregg Goldsteinin the Hollywood Reporter: "John Malkovich is portraying a 23rd century corporate overlord opposite Thomas Jane in Simon Hunter's sci-fi action thriller The Mutant Chronicles.

Game makers need to stop trying to imitate the movies, argues Jordan Mechner in Wired: "One day soon, calling a game 'cinematic' will be a backhanded compliment, like calling a movie 'stagy.'" Via John August.

Snakes on a Plane needs your dialogue. Via Ben at the Whine Colored Sea.

Online fiddling around tip. Via Coudal Partners, a site for David Byrne and Brian Eno's highly influential 1981 album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, to be remastered and re-released with bonus tracks on April 11. The fiddling around part: "In keeping with the spirit of the original album, Brian and David are offering for download all the multitracks on two of the songs. Through signing up to the user license, and in line with Creative Commons licenses, you are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate these tracks however you like."

Online browsing tip #1. Mexican Lobby Cards, via Posterwire.com.

Online browsing tip #2. Las Onomatopeyas, via The Crime in Your Coffee.

Online browsing tip #3. The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia, via Campaspe, who calls it "a massive labor of love and surely one of the most complete and fascinating fan sites on the Web." Related: Greenbriar Picture Shows on Thursday, Crawford's birthday.

Online listening tip. Sound Effects, volumes 13 (Death and Horror, 1977) and 21 (More Death and Horror, 1978). Also via The Crime in Your Coffee.

Online viewing tip. Also via Coudal Partners, the trailer for Unheardfilm, "the new soundtrack festival" that wrapped in Amsterdam on March 11.

Posted by dwhudson at March 25, 2006 4:11 PM