Weekend shorts.

Richard Armstrong has one of the most unusual cinemaniac stories you're ever likely to read. Also at Flickhead: Ray Young on Winter Soldier: "These ex-soldiers mirror who and what we are, what primitive ugliness lurks inside our minds waiting to be conditioned and groomed and cut loose."

Dan Glaister's profile of John Sinno, who runs Arab Film Distribution (you may remember that Hannah Eaves met him in December), may have a news hook, the just-wrapped Seattle Arab & Iranian Film Festival, but it begins with an alarming story of his being detained by US immigration officials last month. For nine hours. Because he had a box of DVDs in his trunk. "It was pretty scary," Sinno tells Glaister. "'I said to them, look, I'm being racially profiled. Let's admit it and move on.' He hesitates. 'I don't know if it's a good idea to talk about it. We live in touchy times.'"

Also in the Guardian:

• Barry Gifford: "The republication of his Depression-era novel, No Bed of Her Own, originally issued by the Vanguard Press in New York in 1932, gives those of us familiar with [Val] Lewton's films an opportunity to experience his long out-of-print efforts at writing fiction; and brings again to light his fascinating work behind the camera." Related: Alexander Nemerov's Icons of Grief: Val Lewton's Home Front Pictures is one of Girish's many recent acquisitions.

• John Patterson fears horror's come to a dead end. Related: Anne Thompson in the Hollywood Reporter on the durability of the Scary Movie franchise and, at Cinematical, Scott Weinberg's "2006 Horror Movie Report Card: Quarter One."

• "And we're not going to allow books with any pictures of Madonna in bed." Attallah Abu al-Sibbah, the new Palestinian culture minister and Hamas government cabinet member, lays out his agenda, reports Chris McGreal. "I would open cinemas. It could be an education and help people live better. Hollywood is not all bad. Titanic was a good film, a human film." Paradise Now might pass, but, "If I need to cut it, I will cut it."

• "[Dennis] Hopper's persona is that of genial host, artist manqué, as well as Zelig-like bystander and participant in just about everything that ever happened in the 60s." Dan Glaister pays a visit.

• Ken Russell's house caught fire on Monday and, as Martin Wainwright reports, "he plunged into his blazing thatched cottage to rescue his wife who - unknown to him - leapt from her bath when the fire broke out and ran naked into their garden." Xan Brooks finds the scene worthy of the Russell treatment, so he writes up the screenplay, complete with snakes.

• Gareth McLean talks with Lisa Kudrow about Happy Endings.

• Patterson again: "[T]he misbehavior and suffering of an artistic genius - forgive him, he's better than the rest of us - is one of the most clapped-out, tedious and undiverting dramatic trajectories that movies can offer us."

• Caroline Kipling psychoanalyses Basic Instinct 2. More from Dennis Lim in the Voice.

• Michael Eaude remembers Rocío Dúrcal, 1944 - 2006.

Eric D Snider: "How beloved are the sassy film critics at HollywoodBitchslap and EFilmCritic? So beloved that some tool at the University of Missouri-Kansas City has plagiarized from us almost 60 times in the past year alone."

Filmbrain on Godard's La Chinoise: "Seeing it again after all these years, it's almost impossible not to find it more than a bit dated politically, yet at the same time realizing how important a film it is JLG's oeuvre."

Acquarello on There Was an Unseen Cloud Moving: "[Leslie] Thornton creates a playful, tactile, and insightful experimental biography of the iconoclastic heroine through an impressionistic collage of found film, archival photographs, mixed media (film and video) reenactments, and textured annotations that serve as an appropriately abstract yet incisive and instinctually cohesive representation of [Isabelle] Eberhardt's equally strange and unorthodox, yet remarkable life."

In PopMatters, Violet Glaze argues that Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life is shot through with a "startling, unconscious racism renders it unfit for modern audiences unwilling to forgive its ignorance."

"While French cinema is hardly free of mediocre movies, it has been sustained, like that of the Japanese, by a continual flow of gifted filmmakers grappling honestly with the human experience. At their best, French movies, past and present, remain essential viewing." Not a thrilling introduction, but Kevin Thomas's annotated list that follows is a nice browse in the Los Angeles Times.

In the Independent: Rhoda Koenig on Ava Gardner, Alice Jones with the story behind U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha and Lesley O'Toole's interview with Antonio Banderas.

Film-wise, the Voice was a bit thin this week, reflecting either a lull in the release schedule or the state of the weekly itself. Anthony Kaufman, for example, is discouraged to see the return of LA-based critic Luke Y Thompson and the disappearance of DC correspondent James Ridgeway: "It's amazing: in just a month-and-a-half, the New Times corporation has slowly but surely succeeded in almost completely de-politicizing and de-nationalizing the Voice - except for veteran lefty Nat Hentoff. Let's see how long he lasts."

Meantime, J Hoberman on Friends With Money, "a more grown-up version of [Jennifer] Aniston's long- running TV vehicle - complete with the star herself as eternal ingenue." More from Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times, Armond White in the New York Press, Nathan Rabin in the AV Club and from Andrew O'Hehir, who talks with director Nicole Holofcener for Salon.

Also:

• Michael Atkinson on Lucky Number Slevin, "a smug, derivative, but frequently witty crime cartoon set in a mythical city where dueling underworld kingpins (Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley) face each other in sealed towers, the chasm between them traversed by unimpressive digital swoops." More from Stephen Holden in the NYT, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, Stephanie Zacharek in Salon, Christopher Kelly in the Star-Telegram, James Rocchi at Cinematical, Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat and Jim Tudor at Twitch.

• Atkinson on the "cynically mushy" On a Clear Day (more from Matt Zoller Seitz in the NYP and Jeannette Catsoulis in the NYT) - and Valley of the Bees, "the first widely available [Frantisek] Vlácil in the US; here's to exhuming his entire prickly, eye-popping oeuvre." Plus: All of Kieslowski in two paragraphs.

• Jessica Winter on Amos Gitaï's movie with Natalie Portman: "Oddly, in representing a private conflict as the microcosm of an unsolvable catastrophe, Free Zone only manages to miniaturize both." More from Salon's O'Hehir, the NYT's Holden and the AV Club's Noel Murray. In the NYP, Jennifer Merin talks with Gitaï. Related online listening tip: Amos Gitaï on the Leonard Lopate Show.

• "Tracking Shots": Hoberman on Dirty Harry, Jim Ridley on The Great Warming and Ice Age: The Meltdown and Melissa Levine on Simon and La Mujer de Mi Hermano. More on that last one from Catsoulis in the NYT.

• The NYPD is filming demonstrations. Jarrett Murphy lays out the pros and contras.

At indieWIRE, Jason Guerrasio reports on five films in production: All the World's a Stage, Exhibit A, If I Ever Cease to Love, Stiffs and When a Man Falls in a Forest.

In the SF Weekly, Bill Gallo reviews Sir! No Sir!, "a potent mix of outrage, residual anger, and sorrow that speaks not just to the legacy of our misadventures in Vietnam, but to the entire uncertain future of a nation at war."

At Cinematical, Martha Fischer reviews Things That Hang on Trees, "a film that works very hard to convince its audience that it's something very deep and profound; when you go looking for that profundity, however, there's nothing there."

Sharon Waxman: "Universal Studios said on Monday that it would stick with plans to show an adrenaline-pumping trailer for United 93 its forthcoming thriller about the passenger revolt on one of the planes hijacked on 9/11, despite qualms from some moviegoers and families of 9/11 victims." Still, as Scott Martelle reports in the Los Angeles Times, one NYC theater has pulled the trailer anyway, "after complaints from moviegoers." Commentary: Chris Barsanti, Kate Kelly and Jeffrey A Trachtenberg (via Movie City News), Stephen Schaefer and Chuck Tryon. The Reeler rounds up more. And yet more: Slate staffers debate the trailer.

Also in the NYT:

• Charles McGrath reviews Alan Bennett's Untold Stories.

• "[W]hile some romantically involved actors might see the dramatic possibilities of performing together from a Taylor-and-Burton perspective, Mr Barney saw it decidedly from Duchamp's." Randy Kennedy meets both Björk and Matthew Barney to talk about Drawing Restraint 9.

• Christian Moerk visits the set of August Moon, "now shooting in New York, [with] a cast that includes Robin Williams, Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. A rarity among contemporary studio projects, it is a personal movie gambling on the ability of [Kirsten] Sheridan, who was nominated for an Oscar with her father, Jim Sheridan, and sister, Naomi, for writing In America, to deliver on an unusual tale about a boy who can visualize the music around us as others see smoke rise or leaves fall."

• Kirstopher Tapley looks ahead to a few "issue" movies coming up later in the year, "which, in one way or another, promise to push boundaries with their methods and messaging."

• Sylviane Gold meets director Sarah Watt and actress Justine Clark to talk about Look Both Ways.

• If Tom DeLay thought that by resigning, this film was going to go away, he made a big mistake," Robert Greenwald tells Stephanie Goodman. The film: The Big Buy: How Tom DeLay Stole Congress.

• Nora Ephron has a rotten night out.

  Dave Kehr finds that Universal's approach to box sets - "cram five or six films onto two DVDs" - "may reduce the visual quality a bit, but it does allow the studio to issue lesser-known films that might not be able to support individual DVD releases of their own."

• Caryn James profiles playwright Martin McDonagh, whose first film, the 27-minute Six Shooter, won an Oscar.

• Nathan Lee reviews Quality of Life, "a minor movie, modestly made, that develops to a counterculture beat but ends with a status quo conundrum: Is selling out the new keeping it real?" More from Joshua Land in the Voice.

• More reviews that aren't popping up elsewhere in this entry: Stephen Holden on Take the Lead (more from Salon's Zacharek and Cinematical's Jette Kernion); Neil Genzlinger on When Do We Eat? and 95 Miles to Go; Manohla Dargis on The Benchwarmers and Nathan Lee on Phat Girlz.

At Movie City Indie, Ray Pride finds a couple of interviews you'll want to check: Xinhua's with Hou Hsiao-hsien and Stephanie Wong's with Johnnie To.

At Koreanfilm.org, Darcy Paquet reviews Kim Hyun-seok's When Romance Meets Destiny: "Comedies that rely on character rather than slapstick or outlandish situations often last longer in the memory, and this film is no exception." Also, Adam Hartzell on Lee Man-hee's The Starting Point.

Spencer Parsons gets together with Kyle Henry and his lead actress, Cyndi Williams, to talk about their Cannes and Sundance vet, Room.

Also in the Austin Chronicle:

• Anne S Lewis talks with Steve James about Hoop Dreams.

• Marc Savlov meets Boogaloo Shrimp - click his name and watch that trailer!

• Joe O'Connell's got Austin area newsbits (Grind House, There Will Be Blood and more).

Caroline Palmer in the Nashville Scene on The Future of Food: "Focusing primarily on Monsanto, [Deborah Koons] Garcia's polemical documentary makes a provocative case that the competitive desire for low prices and high yields has wreaked havoc on the family farmer, rural communities and, most likely, our health."

Nick Rombes: "What is surprising about Punishment Park is not its overt politics - the entire narrative framework of the film directs your identification and sympathy to the dissidents - but rather the way that the film complicates that identification by giving serious voice to what Peter Watkins refers to as the 'conservative' people on the tribunal."

Stanley Kauffmann in the New Republic on the Dardenne brothers: "How comforting it has been through the last ten years to remember that they are working, that two filmmakers of our time have such gifts of spiritual scope and unembarrassed compassion and have the art to present their insights simply, almost humbly." Related: Girish catches a few early works with Doug Cummings and, in the SFBG, Max Goldberg on L'Enfant.

The editing rhythms of Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That and Liza With a Z are different as all get out, but the NYP's Armond White approves of both: "Each film becomes an artifact, commemorating a mainstream cultural occasion, but their styles set an expressive new standard."

Michael Ray interviews Gus Van Sant for ReadyMade. Via Matt Hinricks at MindJack.

"[W]here Do The Right Thing benefited from multi-racial talking points, Inside Man seriously suffers from them," argues Aram David at the Film Obsessive. More from Stuart Klawans in the Nation.

In the City Pages, Rob Nelson has a quick talk with Wim Wenders about Don't Come Knocking.

Ajit Anthony Prem talks with Four Eyed Monsters filmmakers Susan Brice and Arin Crumley, whose podcast episodes now rack up about 60K views a day.

Stop Smiling runs an excerpt from Nile Southern's interview with Albert Maysles.

Gary Giddens selects and annotates his ten favorite Criterion discs. Speaking of which, Brendon Connelly scents a hint.

"Like its predecessors, Crash offers up a self-serving thesis of race that consists of two propositions: One, racism is a matter of individual prejudice; two, the antidote to racism is, therefore, personal redemption." In These Times senior editor Lakshmi Chaudhry explains why "this kind of liberal humanism effectively lets white Americans off the hook and denies the need for radical social change.... We do not know how to see the other as both different and equal, or how to recognize difference without resorting to essentialism." More from Peter Nellhaus.

If only Jack and Ennis had gotten together, they could have lived happily ever after, right? Not so fast, cautions Gregory P Dorr, hoping in the DVD Journal that Brokeback Mountain will now be seen with more contemplation at home: "One on one, Jack and Ennis are dysfunctional and destructive, with Jack's chronic manipulations inevitably resulting in Ennis' disastrous slips into irresponsibility."

Nick Schager on Neil Young: Heart of Gold: "It may be the finest concert film I’ve ever seen."

Cineuropa's current "Film Focus": Song of Songs.

"'Sabotage is one of the strangest and darkest films, not just in Hitchcock's career, but in cinema in general,' says Dominik Moll. 'It's gloomy, desperate, and almost impossible to identify with any of the characters. And for all those reasons, I really, really like it.'" Benjamin Secher listens. Also in the Telegraph: Kate Devlin asks Daniel Brühl how his week went and Sheila Johnston talks with Hany Abu-Asad about Paradise Now.

Not a bad gig: Michelle Williams heads for Paris this summer, where Woody Allen will be shooting another one. Borys Kit has a bit more in the Hollywood Reporter.

Boyd van Hoeij has pix from Franka Potente's directorial debut, Der the Tollkirsche ausgräbt at europeanfilms.net.

"What does it say about the state of the medium that film buffs are more likely to debate whether King Kong bombed than why it sucked?" asks Stephen Metcalf in Slate. Also, Sam Anderson prefers watching TV on DVD and hails "the end of simultaneity: everyone lives in different cultural time zones." What's more, "Retro-watching has become big business." And, this last one via Alison Willmore at the IFC Blog, Hua Hsu mourns the career trajectory of Wayne Wang.

Vince Keenan: "The Backstory interviews with screenwriters are invaluable for any student of the movies. Volume Four, about scribes of the 1970s and 80s, is no exception, even though it has its share of flaws."

At 40 Years in the Desert, Daniel Nemet-Nejat talks with John Wilson, founder of the Razzies.

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke wades through the sleaze gushing out from the Pellicano case and splashing into Hollywood. More from David M Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner in the NYT, but much, much more from the Los Angeles Times, which has set up a special section on the case - and of course, at Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke's blog.

Online browsing tip #1. The Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers. Via Nick Davis.

Online browsing tip #2. Hand-painted movie posters from Ghana. Via Rashomon.

Online browsing tip #3. Silent Hill paraphernalia, via Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker.

Online browsing tip #4. Brian Loube's 9-11-3D. Via Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing.

Online listening tip #1. Benjamin Walker on Stanislaw Lem, via Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing. Related: Waggish.

Online listening tip #2. Kurt Vonnegut on Bookworm.

Online listening tip #3. The Hitchcock/Truffaut Tapes #3 at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger....

Online listening tip #4. Audio from the Poetry Foundation. Poems read by the likes of Alfred Molina, Paul Giamatti and so on.

Online viewing tip #1. The trailer for Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.

Online viewing tip #2. Takashi Kawashima's Seasons at DVblog.

Online viewing tips #3 through #12. For JoBlo, Mike Sampson rounds up the "10 Best 80s Movie Music Videos." Via Fimoculous.

Online viewing tips #13 and #14. Now clear all that out with the Sex Pistols performing "Anarchy in the UK" back in 1976. At Bedazzled, where you'll also find Yoko Ono's 1965 "Cut Piece."

Online viewing tip #15. 3 Years in 3 Minutes. I know the feeling. Via Coudal Partners.

Online viewing tip #16. Antoine Fuqua directs Naomi Campbell and John Malkovich in The Call. An ad. Not a very good one, either, but there you go. Via Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Grindhouse trailers at YesButNoButYes, via The Crime in Your Coffee.

Online viewing tips, round 2. It's videobloggingweek2006.

Posted by dwhudson at April 8, 2006 4:34 PM