Shorts, 9/4.

The BBC: "Director Lou Ye has been banned from making films in China for five years for submitting an entry for the Cannes festival without government approval." More from Reuters.

On the eve of a retrospective "celebrating his 'first 30 years'" as a producer, Sheila Johnston talks with Jeremy Thomas about a favorite - two favorite films, actually, Abbas Kiarostami's Ten and 10 on Ten. Via Ray Pride at Movie City Indie.

For the Independent, Neil Norman meets Thomas as well: "Among the selection of films that Thomas has produced are movies by cinema's dark masters - Nicolas Roeg, Bernardo Bertolucci, David Cronenberg. For the man once dubbed by Bertolucci 'a hustler in the fur of a teddy bear,' it is an impressive legacy. And nor is Thomas living off past glories - in an age when Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan of Working Title are producing British hit films, Thomas represents an altogether more fearless approach. He recently produced Terry Gilliam's Tideland: 'Jeremy is the last of the breed,' says Gilliam. 'An endangered species. Because he loves film. Tim and Eric have made the money. Jeremy has made the difference.'"

Ed Gonzalez in Slant on 49 Up; in general, the films in Michael Apted's Up Series "affect their subjects not unlike they do their audience, serving not only as reminders of our mortality but as instruments to measure how much, or how little, we've accomplished in our short lives or struggled against the notion that we are all born slaves to an indestructible birthright."

"Nearly twenty years after Harun Farocki paid homage to the profound influence of Straub/Huillet's cinema by filming their exhaustive rehearsal process during preparations for the shooting of their film Class Relations for the documentary Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet at Work...," writes acquarello, "Pedro Costa captures their equally exacting process of editing their feature film, Sicilia!, in Where Has Your Hidden Smile Gone?."

John McElwee tells Ida Lupino's story at Greenbriar Picture Shows and notes, "She should have received a special Academy Award for all she accomplished, but why would they do something right all of a sudden?"

For SF360, Michael Fox asks David Thomson, "OK, but why Kidman? What is iconic about her?" Related: Thomson's latest column for the Independent; it's on the whole Tom Cruise thing.

CSA: The Confederate States of America is "a remarkably interesting, smart, and disturbing take on the history of race in the United States," writes Chuck Tryon, and actually: "I didn't intend to write such a long review of the film, but as I began writing, I became taken by [Kevin] Willmott's attentive critique of the role of images and icons in constructing national identity and wanted to highlight this remarkable little film."

That Little Round-Headed Boy has 25 thoughts on Blow Out. Related: Slant's "Auteur Fatale" rolls on.

Newly inducted into the Hollywood Bitchslap Hall of Fame: Ray Harryhausen.

"Parisian arts cinemas are having a hard time," writes Mark Zitzmann in a piece for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung translated at signandsight by Abby Darcy. After a primer on the cinema d'art et d'essai, Zitzmann describes the funding structure (some cinemas receive up to 40 percent of their income from the state) and describes an initiative aimed at reversing "a trend which has seen nearly 50 cinemas disappear over the last few decades."

At Cinematical, Scott Weinberg talks with Howard Haas about saving Philadelphia's Boyd Theater.

Two more takes on The Illusionist: Stanley Kauffmann in the New Republic and David Walsh at the WSWS.

Peter Nellhaus on two by Volker Schlöndorff: "Coup de Grace and The Ogre are in some ways complimentary, if reversed stories about Germans in war."

In the Guardian, Austin Mutti-Mewse remembers Lois January, 1912 - 2006.

The administrators of Ingmar Bergman Face to Face have sent out word that there's new content in English up there, in particular info on Bergman's work currently being performed On Stage around the world.

Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times: "Of all the things to note about the Pasadena Playhouse's starry revival of August Wilson's Fences, surely the happiest is that Laurence Fishburne has once again found a stage role big enough for his husky talent."

Caveh Zahedi waves adieu to readers of his blog: "I have a lot of new projects that I'm working on simultaneously, and there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to make all of the films I would like to make, so I feel I really need to prioritize."

Online viewing tip. The trailer for John Madden's KillShot, an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel, exec-produced by Quentin Tarantino and starring Diane Lane, Thomas Jane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson and Mickey Rourke. Via Brendon Connelly.

Posted by dwhudson at September 4, 2006 11:52 AM