Shorts, 5/5.

"It is often interesting to see a work considered a classic and to ask, Why?" Daniel Garrett delves into Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc for Cinetext: "I know that some people, many people, see Joan's accusers as grotesque, as inhuman, but I do not. They are formidable in their focus and fury, and in their determination of her fate, but what makes them so terrible is that their logic is understandable, their suspicions not far from the usual suspicions society has of individuals who claim a great destiny, and their sacrifice of her for the maintenance of authority, doctrine, and communal peace is the typical rending of a scapegoat."

Garrett's recent reviews for the Compulsive Reader: Jacob Thuesen's Anklaget (Accused), Heather Rae's Trudell, Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront and Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy.

"It saddens me that Roberto Rossellini's twin daughters, Ingrid and Isabella, are feuding over Isabella's tribute to him," writes Looker, who hears Ingrid's complaint and addresses it. Also: Enough with the mockumentaries, already.

"Werner Herzog saw [What Is It?] - there are influences from some of his work in this film, especially Even Dwarfs Started Small and Fata Morgana - and he's said that there's no such thing as independent film. And of course that's true." Crispin Glover takes questions from the AV Club.

David Lowery's recently caught Edmond: "Stuart Gordon was also at the screening. I presume that most people are aware of Gordon first and foremost as the director of Re-Animator and other Lovecraft adaptations; I thought this was a fascinating change of pace for him, until he informed the crowd that he'd been working with Mamet on the stage for thirty years, had been one of his earliest champions, and had directed the very first production of Sexual Perversity in Chicago."

"Like many intellectuals of the Arab West, the French-educated, Paris-based [Nacer] Khemir has an equivocal relationship with his cultural identity," writes Youssef Rakkha in the Al-Ahram Weekly, introducing the profile. Also, Hani Mustafa on Syriana. Via Perlentaucher's "Magazinrundschau."

Jason Guerrasio's monthly check-up on five indies in production is up at indieWIRE: Love and Mary, Sisters ("Douglas Buck remakes Brian De Palma's 1973 thriller for his feature debut, starring Chloë Sevigny, Stephen Rea and Lou Doillon"), Solstice, Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness and We Own the Night, James Gray's followup to The Yards.

Stuart Klawans in the Nation: "[A]s Three Times plays and replays in memory, it keeps deepening, expanding, growing more complex, as one of those rare films whose life truly begins not on the screen but in your mind."

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir talks with Nick Cave about The Proposition. At Slant, you'll find Nick Schager's very favorable review, and in the Voice, J Hoberman: "[A]s primal, savage, and downright miserablist as all but the greatest of Hollywood's terminal oat operas." More from Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Press, Steve Erickson for Gay City News, Noel Murray at the AV Club, Martha Fischer at Cinematical and The Reeler.

Also in the Voice, Michael Atkinson: "Coming closer even than Zhang Yimou's Hero and House of Flying Daggers to resembling the Chinese cover art for a vintage Iron Butterfly album, Chen Kaige's The Promise is psychedelia extremis." More from AO Scott in the NYT, Armond White in the NYP, Sam Adams in the Philadelphia City Paper, Nick Schager at Slant and Tasha Robinson at the AV Club. For the Stranger, Charles Mudede interviews Kaige.

And the "Tracking Shots": Jim Ridley on Crazy Like a Fox (more: Jeannette Catsoulis, NYT; Ed Gonzalez, Slant) and An American Haunting (Nathan Lee, NYT; Nick Schager, Slant; Jim Ridley, Nashville Scene; Grady Hendrix, Slate); Rob Nelson on Down in the Valley (Schager; Stephen Holden, NYT; Stephanie Zacharek, Salon; Christopher Campbell, Cinematical); and Matt Singer on Kiss Me Again. More on that one from Neil Genzlinger in the NYT.

Deepa Mehta's Water is slated to open this summer in India, "riots or no," reports Elizabeth Bumiller, who talks with the director about her many run-ins with Hindu fundamentalists.

Also in the New York Times:

• Dave Kehr: "It was through [Tennessee] Williams, and the new breed of actors who made some of their earliest appearances in film versions of his plays, that Method acting entered American movies."

• Ben Brantley: "Playing the title role in Brian Friel's great play Faith Healer, which opened last night in a mesmerizing revival at the Booth Theater, Ralph Fiennes paints a portrait of the artist as dreamer and destroyer that feels both as old as folklore and so fresh that it might be painted in wet blood." More from John Simon at Bloomberg.com.

• Jeannette Catsoulis on How I Killed a Saint (more from Ben Kenigsberg in the Voice).

• Nathan Lee on Following Sean (more from Slant's Ed Gonzalez and Drew Tillman in the Voice).

• Stephen Holden: "One Last Thing... is shrewdly divided against itself. What begins as a small, cleareyed drama about a teenager with terminal cancer morphs into a gauzy tear-jerker."

• Anita Gates finds Mistress of Spices "a one-dimensional, sometimes illogical film, but it's certainly good-looking."

• Sharon Waxman on Warner Independent's Mark Gill being "ushered out."

For the San Francisco Chronicle, Heidi Benson talks with a former film critic at the paper, Judy Stone, who's got a new book coming out this summer, Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World. Via Ray Pride at Movie City Indie.

Chuck Tryon: "A few days ago, Andy Horbal discussed Scott Kirsner's Boston Globe column, "Everyone's Always Been a Critic - But the Net Makes Their Voices Count," which explores the role of film and media criticism on the net... My major concern is that Kirsner places unnecessary limits on what good amateur criticism can do by framing criticism in terms of consumer choice rather than genuine enthusiasm for a genre, medium, or what have you." Also referenced: Joe Morgenstern's "Rumors of the Critic's Demise are Greatly Exaggerated" in the Wall Street Journal.

And, as you'll have heard, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the WSJ has opened its doors to the rest of us this week, prompting Andrew LaVallee to review the way the Internet has been portrayed in the movies over the past decade.

For the Sydney Morning Herald, Philippa Hawker meets Juliette Binoche and hears how Michael Haneke helped her rediscover a reason to act. Via Movie City News.

Girish catches a new 3D experimental film by Zoe Beloff.

Doug Cummings reviews three films by Nathaniel Dorsky.

At Slant, Nick Schager finds Sketches of Frank Gehry "a handy primer on the iconoclastic architect's career that, at its best, offers an intriguing glimpse into the way in which casual conversations and visual associations frequently become the seeds of Gehry's artistic ideas." Related: The Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Goldstein: "[Sydney] Pollack says the first indie directing job in his 40-plus-year career won't be his last."

For Slant's Ed Gonzalez, Hoot is one of this year's pleasant surprises. More from Dana Stevens in the NYT, Jette Kernion at Cinematical and Jan Stuart in the LAT, where Margaret Wappler meets Carl Hiaasen.

Up-n-coming:

• Jack Black in an "eccentric comedy Be Kind Rewind, playing a junkyard worker whose brain is magnetized, destroying every tape in his friend's video store and forcing the pair to remake the lost films," notes the Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Goldstein. Michel Gondry drafted the screenplay in three weeks and will direct.

• Heath Ledger replaces Colin Farrell in Todd Haynes's Bob Dylan project.

• Gillian Armstrong will direct Catherine Zeta-Jones and Guy Pearce in Death Defying Acts, a Houdini biopic.

• Tony Jaa will direct Ong Bak 2 himself.

• Yet more Sin City.

"Since January, the momentum behind Gore and [An Inconvenient Truth] has snowballed." Anne Thompson explains how in the Hollywood Reporter.

A sobering reminder from Ella Taylor in the LA Weekly: "If The Death of Mr Lazarescu is about the institutional heedlessness that allows individuals to die without dignity, it also gazes, giving no quarter, on the bone-deep, universal loneliness of death. The lucky among us may go out with someone to hold their hands, but one way or another, we all end up alone on that cold slab." More from Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat. Scott Foundas has a long talk with director Cristi Puiu. Also: Chuck Wilson asks David Zeiger about Sir! No Sir!.

The Austin Chronicle's got a big cover package on The Devil and Daniel Johnston, with Louis Black considering the film and his own relationship with the troubled artist.

Also: Anne S Lewis talks with Peter Frumkin about Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home, Steve Uhler on Criterion's Complete Mr Arkadin and Marc Savlov: "ou never forget your first glimpse of Louise Brooks."

"But what makes a bad film?" asks comedian Stewart Lee, and on the Guardian's Culture Vulture blog, Xan Brooks takes the question, adds a twist - movies you hate everyone else loves - and opens it up to public discussion. Lots of public discussion.

Also in the Guardian:

• The Adaptations project now has its own special section.

• Alex Cox traces the history of westerns and argues that the genre, in its purest form, really is well and truly dead.

• Jonathan Gibbs: "Ah, yes, the colon, denoting the filmic subtitle."

• Brooks profiles Luis Guzman.

• John Patterson has had more than enough of Tom Cruise, Robin Williams and Steve Martin.

• Derivatives trader Duncan Baird on Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

• Julian Gilbey, director of Rollin' With the Nines, snaps back at critics.

A Cineuropa "Film Focus": Isabel Coixet's The Secret Life of Words.

Clarence Carter sneak previews Vers le sud for Reverse Shot, "a very flawed, wonderfully photographed movie that I still like very much."

"Dominic Savage's Love + Hate is the latest in a long line of films that have left me in despair at British cinema's view of British Asians," writes Kaleem Aftab. Also in the Independent: Geoffrey Macnab meets Irène Jacob.

Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat: "Fourteen years after its American release, Delicatessen remains one of the most impressive and enjoyable feature debuts of the last two decades."

Pablo Neruda Presente!: Still a work-in-progress.

Rob Nelson in the City Pages on Hard Candy: "Not to sound like Michael Medved here, but really: Isn't there a statute of limitations for the rape-revenge genre?" More from Michael Tully. In the LAT, profiles Ellen Page.

United 93 roundup: Godfrey Cheshire in the Independent Weekly; Robert Cashill; Dan Jardine; in the City Pages and elsewhere, Robert Wilonsky; Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer. Meanwhile, the Cinemarati discuss the idea of "healing through confrontation."

Jonathan Kiefer in Maisonneuve: "Seven Things I Learned About Women From Basic Instinct 2, Friends with Money and The Notorious Bettie Page.

"A chorus of voices is making itself heard to defend or denounce the Comédie-Française after the French theater company cancelled a play by Peter Handke." Euro|topics rounds up press coverage.

Jeffrey Wells: "Southland Tales director-writer Richard Kelly's passport has been stuck 'under review' for the past several days in Washington, DC, because, I'm told, there's a guy named James Kelly on the government's terrorist watch list."

New Republic blogger Lee Siegel speculates on George Clooney's political ambitions.

For Metaphilm, Morgan Powell examines the problems many critics have had with The Passion of the Christ: "Whatever flaws it contains, Gibson's film is nothing if not an attempt to revitalize the medieval tradition of devotion to the Passion through a modern medium."

Marco Lanzagorta on Halloween III, Keep and Lifeforce: "These movies are often maligned, bashed, and hated by horror fans, and remain ignored by academics and scholars of the genre. However, at the risk of my credibility as PopMatters' horror expert, I will argue that these films are three of the most interesting efforts of the 80s, and should actually be considered as "slightly imperfect" masterpieces."

The San Francisco Bay Guardian's Cheryl Eddy salutes John Saxon and reviews Paul Talbot's Bronson's Loose! The Making of the Death Wish Films.

Boyd van Hoeij posts stills from Tom Tykwer's Perfume at europeanfilms.net.

The BBC: "One of Bollywood's best known music composers, Naushad Ali, has died at the age of 86."

At TurnHere, Matt Carter compares two lists: the most pirated movies and the bestselling DVDs. Turns out, there's very little overlap: "If P2P users aren't as interested in movies that are available legally, one way to prevent piracy might be to offer simultaneous 'day and date' release of movies to theaters, DVD and the Internet."

CNET's Amanda Termen listened in on a panel of 'xperts and came away with this: "Hollywood will survive the user-generated video revolution, while the Web needs to work on a business model to make the most of Hollywood's resources."

Online listening tips. Recent guests on the Leonard Lopate Show: Nick Cave, Jon Voigt, Chen Kaige and Sydney Pollack.

Online browsing and viewing tip. The new Evanmather.com.

Online viewing tip #1. The Raftman's Razor at No fat clips!!!

Online viewing tip #2. Otaku From USA at TV in Japan. Via Screenhead.

Online viewing tips #3, #4 and #5. At Twitch, logboy's found a teaser for Yoji Yamada's Bushi No Ichibun. Todd's got one for Reeker and another for One Missed Call.

Online viewing tip #6. Grady Hendrix spots a trailer for Ram Gopal Varma's Go. Related: Abhishek Bandekar at Hollywood Bitchslap on Darna Mana Hai.

Online viewing tip #7. The trailer for the Characters in Motion collection of 90 animated films. Via Wiley Wiggins.

Online viewing tips. Get a Mac. Via Jason Morehead.

Posted by dwhudson at May 5, 2006 3:08 PM