Weekend shorts.

At Quick Stop Entertainment, DK Holm notes that, after a severe drought, this is a damn fine time for film books and then reviews Annalee Newitz's Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture, "a terrific survey of 'monster' movies of the last 20 or so years and pop culture well before that, and focusing on cannibals, robots, and serial killers."

How did The Searchers get canonized, wonders Stephen Metcalf in Slate: "It is preposterous in its plotting, spasmodic in its pacing, unfunny in its hijinks, bipolar in its politics, alternately sodden and convulsive in its acting, not to mention boring.... Though visually magnificent, the movie is otherwise off-putting to the contemporary sensibility, what with its when men were men, and women were hysterics mythos and an acting style that often appears frozen in tintype." Jim Emerson responds, arguing that Metcalf isn't actually all that concerned about the film itself: "Using The Searchers as an anecdotal, ideological bludgeon, Metcalf attempts to attack the impudent and insidious notion that movies are worthy of serious study and artistic interpretation."

Two meaty entries from Girish to chew on: "Taxonomies" and "Signpost Films."

Michael Atkinson: "Don't call it nostalgia - what's beguiling and hilarious and dazzling today about unpretentious star vehicles like China Seas (1935) are exactly the same lovely resources that suckered audiences in the 30s: personality amperage, fun-loving sexuality, pulp honesty, and the brazen let's-play-pretend energy of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow." Also in the Voice, Dennis Lim on Urbanscapes.

In the San Diego Reader, Jay Allen Sanford takes a nostalgic tour of the area's drive-ins, most of them now long gone.

"Somehow, Tennessee Williams and the movies have never made a comfortable fit," writes Geoffrey Macnab in the Independent. "On screen, the intensity was invariably lost. Worse, in the name of decency, Williams' work was all too frequently bowdlerised."

Macnab makes an appearance in the Guardian as well: "Talking to [Paul] Schrader about the origins of Taxi Driver is a disarming experience. On the one hand, he waxes nostalgic about a movie he is still clearly immensely proud of. On the other, he is forcing himself to rake over one of the most troubled moments in his own life."

Also in the Guardian:

• Brian Whitaker: "Egyptian MPs are demanding cuts in a popular new film, claiming it defames their country with its gritty portrayal of corrupt politicians, police brutality, terrorism and homosexuality." The film: The Yacoubian Building.

• Oliver Burkeman talks with Garrison Keillor about A Prairie Home Companion.

• "Things started off so well with Naomi Watts," writes Hannah Pool, "and then I went and ruined the mood by mentioning Nicole Kidman."

• John Hooper: "Sophia Loren is causing a new sensation with rumours she is to pose nude for the 2007 Pirelli calendar."

• Meanwhile, holy moly: Luke Harding reports on the discovery of a photograph of Constanze Weber Mozart, widow of the composer, taken in 1840, when she was 78. Just mind-blowing.

At Cinema Strikes Back, David Austin talks with Bill Barounis, whose Onar Films has been releasing Turkish films from a "golden age" which "seems to start in 1967 and end in the late 70s.... Turkish cinema was unrepeatable and unparalleled. No country whatsoever produced such films."

Bradford Nordeen: "Sebastien Lifshitz's Wild Side is one of the most moving and impeccably constructed films I can recall seeing in a non-revival theater in ages."

Peter Gelderblom on Takashi Miike's The Great Yokai War: "You won't hear me declare it a masterpiece. To tell the truth, I don't know what the hell it is.... Think Miyazaki, but live-action, with a slightly fetishistic sensibility."

Bryant Frazer: "Takeshis', Takeshi Kitano's crazy, weird, indulgent, breathtaking, strangely titled fantasy, is as entertaining as it is puzzling - a marvelous movie about movies with a sense of humor and a surreal streak."

At Not Coming to a Theater Near You, Ian Johnston reviews "one of Sokurov's best," The Second Circle.

Peter Debruge at Collider on Kino's package of early films by Michael Haneke: "Few filmmakers have generated as conceptually unified an oeuvre as Haneke, and this is, hands down, the most significant DVD release of the year.... Haneke's early films resonate with contemporary concerns and reinforce his standing as one of the most audacious filmmakers working today."

Though he doesn't frame the piece quite this way, Kenji Fujishima does show that directors of the current crop of summertime blockbuster wannabes could learn a thing or two about the action genre from Die Hard. Also at the House Next Door, NP Thompson has a long talk with Stewart Stern, which he introduces with a brief appreciation of Rachel, Rachel.

Jay Seaver at Hollywood Bitchslap: "The Descent doesn't mess around on its way to being the best action-horror movie to come down the pipe in a while."

Robert Ito: "Die-hard fans of Asian film are quick to recoil at any remake, whether it's The Ring or Shall We Dance? or this summer's Lake House. But with Battle Royale the reaction has been particularly vehement."

Also in the New York Times:

• Dennis Lim tells the story of "the first Malaysian film to be banned at home," Amir Muhammad's The Last Communist.

• Felicia R Lee: "He's back. Chris Moukarbel, a New York artist who was sued by Paramount Pictures over a 12-minute video based on a bootleg Oliver Stone film script about 9/11, has another video in a New York gallery exhibition that seeks to marry politics and art."

• Manohla Dargis: "You don't get much of the old downtown trip or much of anything interesting in Kill Your Idols." More from Joshua Land in the Voice, Eric Kohn in the New York Press, Martha Fischer at Cinematical and The Reeler.

• Steve Chagollan on a perennial favorite, food and the movies.

• Jeannette Catsoulis reviews Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela, "a fascinating glimpse not just of the early campaigns of the African National Congress, but also of the way childhood memories can obscure larger truths." (More from Ed Halter in the Voice.) Also, Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos offers a "perfect balance of heart and hedonism." Related: Cinematical's Martha Fischer talks with producer John Battsek and co-director and editor Paul Crowder.

• And Manohla Dargis on Beowulf & Grendel: "A more accurate title of this conceptually anemic if prettily mounted take on the Scandinavian epic might be Beowulf & the Vixen." Related: Charles McGrath: "The Beowulf story is so strange, so elemental, that it has spun off a surprising number of satellite versions, even though, aside from scholars, few people have actually read it, at least not in the original Old English." More from Marcy Dermansky.

• Nathan Lee on Guernsey, "a composition in angst as flat and fastidious as the Netherlands." More from Michael Atkinson in the Voice: "Existentialist despair is a given."

• Robin Finn meets Rosie Perez, now a "civic-minded activist with not one cause, but two."

• Lawrence Van Gelder: Sean Connery's writing a book.

Wim Wenders has been jetting back and forth between the US and Germany for some time, but now he's preparing to leave America for good, reports Stephanie Bunbury in the Age. "'This hostile takeover by the religious right has created an unpleasant climate,' he says." Via Movie City News.

Ray Pride has a terrific conversation with Richard E Grant at Movie City Indie. The occasion is Wah-Wah, of course, but it's only a starting point.

More interviews:

• AJ Schnack with Andrew Crane, co-director of The Pikme-Up.

• Cinematical's Kim Voynar with Mark Mothersbaugh.

• For Wired, John Pavlus meets Werner Herzog to about his "intergalactic mashup," The Wild Blue Yonder.

• Alison Willmore has more at the IFC Blog.

Johnny Ray Huston on Who Killed the Electric Car?: "There's a low-key tenacity to [director Chris] Paine's approach that's closer to Alex Gibney's infomercial-subverting Enron movie than the agitprop crafted by the blustery-when-effective Michael Moore, or by Robert Greenwald - the kind of person who's easy to agree with, but the type of moviemaker who usually gives the talking head documentary a bad name." Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian: Michelle Devereaux on Strangers With Candy. More on that one from Ernest Hardy in the LA Weekly.

Ian Johns introduces readers of the London Times to the "Frat Pack," whose "core members, producing comedies that are less sophisticated than Woody Allen but less crude than American Pie, include [Ben] Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jack Black, Owen and Luke Wilson and Steve Carell. Hollywood loves them because, for a relatively low production cost, they are achieving huge returns." (Related: Rachel Abramowitz profiles Owen Wilson in the Los Angeles Times.) Also, Howard Feinstein talks with Steve Buscemi about directing Interview, a remake of Theo van Gogh's original.

August Brown: "For the African American musicians who appear in Afro-Punk, their ethnic identity and their deep attraction to the aesthetics and idealism of punk rock often keep them from being fully accepted as a member of either group." Also in the LAT, Kevin Thomas finds Tahmineh Milani's Cease Fire "talky, too long at 1 hour, 44 minutes and [it] tends to be preachy and tedious." Also, Mark Olsen on Only Human.

Shawn Badgley talks with Ward Serrill about The Heart of the Game. Also in the Austin Chronicle, Anne S Lewis on Rebecca Dreyfus's Stolen and Steve Uhler on The Loved One.

Eric Kohn in the NYP on The Motel: "The compositions, usually unfolding in Jarmuschian long takes and viewed through wide angles, tend to look flat, and extended dialogue scenes grow tired. But... there's little doubt that [director Michael] Kang's style will grow."

Christopher Bray remembers the falling out between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann in the New Statesman.

Via Jenni Olson, a list from Christie Keith: "Notice I'm not calling this the ten best lesbian/gay films. I have no idea what the ten best queer films of all time are. I probably haven't even seen them. These are my ten favorite gay movies, period."

2006. We're a little past the halfway mark, and Jason Whyte's got a top ten and bottom five "so far, anyway" at Hollywood Bitchslap.

"Satellite radio DJs and programmers offer perhaps the best example to artists and other creative types looking to take advantage of the new technologies of their respective media," writes Daniel Nemet-Nejat. "Filmmakers could take a page out of their book."

"The allure of the trailer is the realization that immense power need not come in a 90-minute package," writes Adriane Quinlan in the Washington Post. "Sure, it's advertising. But often, it's art."

Online listening tip. Karen Allen recalls Raiders of the Lost Ark on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Online viewing tip #1. The trailer for DOA: Dead or Alive, via Bilge Ebiri.

Online viewing tip #2. At the Culture Blog!, Mark Morford introduces Joss Whedon (introduced by Meryl Streep) accepting an award in honor of the strong roles he's written for women.

Online viewing tip #3. James Israel's found some vintage Dennis Hopper.

Online viewing tip #4. Noam Chomsky vs Michel Foucault. Via Fimoculous.

Online viewing tip #5. Andy Rector points to Jean-Luc Godard talking (without subtitles) about the differences between Santiago Alvarez and Stanley Kubrick's depictions of the war in Vietnam.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Brasscheck TV: hours of leftish documentary viewing.

Online viewing tips, round 2. Erik Davis launches a new feature at Cinematical: "Eat My Shorts."

Online viewing tips, round 3. Alison Willmore rounds up some of the most interesting of the recently released trailers at the IFC Blog. Also, Thom Yorke.

Posted by dwhudson at July 8, 2006 8:07 AM