Shorts, 3/27.

"More than with any other filmmaker that I can think of, [Abel] Ferrara's cinema is one of wondrous messiness," writes Girish, opening another blog-a-thon, this one a Ferrera-Thon. Girish is keeping a list of links to nearly twenty more participants; you'll recognize several favorites and perhaps catch a new name or two as well. This is the tour you want to take today.

At AICN, Run-and-Gun offers a possible preview of the screenplay for Quentin Tarantino's half of Grind House.

"In a risk-averse town like Hollywood, the high church of horror has become the one sure bet," writes Devin Gordon in Newsweek. "Every decade or so, horror gets hot in Hollywood. This latest shockwave, though, is larger - and much more grotesque." David Ansen wonders, "Can we really be surprised, at a time when huge segments of the shockproof public are inured to the concept of real-life torture, that our horrormeisters are working overtime to test the limits of our sang-froid?... There's another route the horror movie can take, which bypasses blood and guts."

"Ost" is German for "east," and for several years now, there's been talk in Germany of "Ostalgie," a sort of looking back at the eastern half of the country before the Wall fell not so much in yearning but in a somewhat sweet light. Healthy in some ways, as long as it's not taken too far. Symptomatic films would be Sonnenallee, Good Bye Lenin!, Helden wie wir (Heroes Like Us) and, most recently, NVA. "Perhaps we needed the funny films to laugh it away once and for all, before we dealt with the serious stuff," says actor Ulrich Mühe at the end Ruth Elkins's piece for the Independent on, well, the serious stuff: Das Leben der Anderen (The Life of Others), "the story of a leading East German playwright whose near-perfect life falls apart when a politician falls for his girlfriend and orders the Stasi to spy on him." As mentioned here previously, critics are raving. More from Kyle James at Deutsche Welle.

Also in the Independent: David Thomson in the Indepedent on Find Me Guilty: "[Sidney] Lumet is too old or too amused to bother with righteousness."

"Movies, when you used to see them on the big screen, had a mystery that they no longer have." In the Los Angeles Times, Peter Bogdanovich mourns what is probably the inevitable passing of a universal, communal experience. You've heard it all before, though perhaps not expressed as eloquently. One nice tidbit does stand out for me, though: "The fact is, it takes at least 100 people to get a decent laugh in a movie — smaller audiences are just not given to letting go." Related: John Rogers: "I will tell you right now, right here, how to get people to go back to seeing movies in theaters. Without disruptive technology. Without theater upgrades. All for, oh, $4.65 an hour per screen."

Sara Schieron interviews The Devil and Daniel Johnston director Jeff Feuerzeig and producer Henry Rosenthal (David Edelstein reviews the film in New York). Also at Slant: Ed Gonzalez on Drawing Restraint 9 (Karen Rosenberg talks with Matthew Barney for New York), Brick and Ice Age: The Meltdown.

Jette Kernion at her own site, celluloid eyes, on Wedding Crashers: "[U]nderneath all the Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson banter is a storyline closely related to It Happened One Night (1934) or even more apt, Midnight (1939)."

MS Smith: "At its core, The Little Foxes is a razor-sharp commentary on the kinds of social and familial relationships predicated upon new-world, American notions of money, success, and ownership."

Simon Garfield talks with Julien Temple about Glastonbury. Also in the Observer: Sarah Hughes on the teen noir heroes of Brick and Veronica Mars and Luke Jennings on Ballets Russes.

In the Guardian, David Belton, co-writer and producer of Shooting Dogs, defends the controversial decision to make the film in Rwanda.

Sterling Hayden. A lot more interesting than you might think. Just ask Tim Lucas. Also: Writer and director Eloy de la Iglesia, dead at 66.

The BBC: "A little-known audition by Marlon Brando for the lead role in Rebel Without a Cause, which later went to James Dean, has come to light."

Slated for the lead in a Molière biopic: Romain Duris. Boyd van Hoeij has more at europeanfilm.net.

Ric Burns's Eugene O'Neill "recounts what may be the most television-friendly life story in the history of playwriting," writes Jonathan Kalb in the New York Times.

Before veering off into an amusing diversion on vocals, Michael Bérubé notes of Heart of Gold that "it's practically impossible to see the movie without thinking of it as the work of the Neil Young Preservation Society - and this is a good thing: Hey, we still have Neil with us! Things can't be all bad, now!" Via wood s lot.

At WSWS, David Walsh finds V for Vendetta "largely undone by the primitiveness of the artistic means and disoriented or wrongheaded social views." William Gibson likes it, though (via Fimoculous).

Kaleem Aftab gets a quick Q&A with Emmanuelle Béart over at the Time Out blog.

Today's Thank You for Smoking interview with Jason Reitman: Peter Sobczynski at Hollywood Bitchslap.

"I love movies. And, I love religion. Before my life melted into a pile of dissatisfied goo, I studied both at university. A lot of people found it an odd combination, but to me it makes perfect sense." At PCL LinkDump, K'Vitsh asks about your "moments of cinematic transcendence."

Online browsing tip. The site for Anders Morgenthaler's Princess is up. Via Todd at Twitch.

Online listening tip. Cyndi Greening with Eve & the Fire Horse director Julia Kwan and producer Erik Paulsson.

Online viewing tip #1. The Sound of Young America is hosting a rare footage of Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Graham Chapman as guests on the Dallas PBS station KERA (where I, too, first saw Monty Python) in a live 1975 appearance, during, of course, a pledge drive. Via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing. Note how taken the Brits' are with the armadillo (cf. the video for The Clash's "Rock the Casbah").

Online viewing tip #2. Clips from Community Shelter Planning (1966), starring Gene Hackman over at PCL LinkDump.

Online viewing tip #3. Rosie Perez tells independentfilm.com about her doc, Yo Soy Boricua, Pa' Que Tu Lo Sepa.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Videoteque, a blog devoted to music videos, all downloads, no streams. Via Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker.

Online viewing tips, round 2. Brandon Hardesty's re-enactments of scenes from his favorite movies. Also via Waxy.org, the Movie Timeline, a sort of history of the world as depicted in the movies.

Online viewing, listening and wallowing tip. Anne Thompson's excellent roundup of all sorts of things related to Spike Lee's use of "Chaiyya Chaiyya" in the opening and end credits for Inside Man. (That entry's still being updated, btw.)

Bookmark tip. Maja Bajevic's I Wish I was Born in a Hollywood Movie launches on Thursday.

Posted by dwhudson at March 27, 2006 11:02 AM