Shorts, 9/25.

"Why this bizarre insistence that any attempt to show any World War II leaders as less than stainless somehow represents an insidious left-wing all-American-wars-are-imperialist agenda? After seeing a trailer, for heaven's sake." The Siren is stunned by Libertas into writing one helluvan entry on WWII movies and "The Gym Class School of Film Criticism."

Three terrific entries from AJ Schnack, right in a row, addressing three questions: Is Jackass Number Two a doc? Is Magnolia screwing up Jesus Camp's chances? Is the MPAA the Vatican's poodle?

More on Jesus Camp from Annie Nocenti at Filmmaker, where KJ Doughton has a piece on American Hardcore.

Jesus Camp "has split the Christian community and horrified those who fear the ascendance of the religious right on the national stage." That much you probably knew. But Gina Piccalo tracks the film's impact so far on its key players.

Also in the Los Angeles Times:

Updated.

• "What do people who didn't live through the late 1940s and the 1950s make of these noir movies?" wonders Thomas de Zengotita. "I have a hypothesis: They make pretty much what I make of them, only at one remove - a very interesting remove."

• Peter Rainer on Brian De Palma: "He's imprisoned by his own legend, but I'm betting he has the Houdini moves to escape and astonish us - astonish himself - once again." Related: That Little Round-Headed Boy on Scarface.

• "Fuji, which, in addition to being Japan's biggest commercial TV broadcaster, has become a prolific producer of the live-action feature films that are seriously cutting into Hollywood's share of the box office," reports Bruce Wallace. What's more, "Fuji is not alone. All four of Japan's powerful TV networks have entered the movie business, creating a new source of domestic film production that is changing the economics of Hollywood's biggest market outside the US."

• Having Disney, but only Disney in its movie store could be a problem for both Apple and the studio, argues Joseph Menn.

Nathaniel R calls for a Blog-a-Thon on October 30: Vampires.

John Hughes, argues Michael Weiss, "was never quite the antagonist of the status quo he made himself out to be. He was actually a political conservative, and his portrayals of down-and-out youth rebellion had more to do with celebrating the moral victory of the underdog than with championing the underprivileged. In Hughes' hormonal vale of tears, snobs and elitists were the ones who ruined wealth for everybody else."

Also in Slate, Dana Stevens on All the King's Men and: what "literary jujitsu" has George W Bush picked up from Harold Pinter's Betrayal, Martin Amis's Time's Arrow, Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along and Christopher Nolan's Memento? Michael Kinsley explains: "If you trace the concept of 'victory' in his remarks on Iraq, and those of subordinates, you discover a war that was won three and a half years ago, and today has barely started."

"The sex that cast members had in the service of the movie seemed to stay in that context; intimate scenes didn't appear to complicate relationships among the cast members. And [John Cameron] Mitchell asked as much of himself as he did of his cast. For a scene that shows writhing bodies in a sort of sexual mosh pit, he jumped into the fray." Frank Bruni has a longish backgrounder on Shortbus in the New York Times. David Amsden profiles Mitchell for New York.

Also in the NYT:

• Sarah Lyall calls up Stephen Frears and Helen Mirren to talk about The Queen. Related: David Edelstein calls the film "a small masterpiece" in New York.

• Lynn Hirschberg visits "Sofia Coppola's Paris."

• "In a wave of films now reaching the screen, digital elements are woven together with the real, vastly extending the filmmaker's reach and leaving the audience to guess where one ends and the other begins." Take Flyboys, for example, suggests Bryan Reesman.

• "[A]s Fred Turner points out in his revealing new book, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, there is no way to separate cyberculture from counterculture; indeed, cyberculture grew from its predecessor's compost," writes Edward Rothstein.

• Sharon Waxman on why Jim Carrey's breakup with manager Nick Stevens is indicative of a "tectonic movement going on in the entertainment industry."

London Fashion Week's just over, but The Devil Wears Prada is about to open in the UK. In the Independent, Vera Rule highlights landmark moments in the history of fashion at the movies while David Thomson, who also writes a bit about Funny Face, worries about all those thin girls.

Emma Brockes has a long, spicy talk with Meryl Streep. Also in the Guardian:

• James Flint contacts "the League of Noble Peers" behind StealThisFilm (Part 1).

• "[A]t the heart of both The Field and The Quiet Man is the bitter irony of Irish Americans returning home, and using their cash to take property from those who stayed on the land," notes Tim Ecott in a piece from the travel section.

• Chrissy Iley interviews Juliette Lewis.

In the Observer, Paul Harris notes how TV's becoming more like the movies while Mark Kermode argues that the movies are becoming more like TV. Also, Philip French on Children of Men and Peter Conrad on David Thomson's Nicole Kidman; more on that one from Peter Bradshaw, who also has a few words on Iain Johnstone "simply rounding up the known facts" in Tom Cruise: All the World's a Stage.

Tim Lucas takes PBS to task for "censoring not only [Ric] Burns, but Warhol's art itself."

Nelhydrea Paupér at Flickhead on Bob Dylan 1966 - 1978: After the Crash: "Not to oversell it - this is mainly for Dylan fanatics or Psych majors interested in fanaticism's celebrity-related manifestations - but it's smart and fun and interesting and ridiculous and insightful and definitely—definitely—well worth the price of admission." Related: Via Coudal Partners, outtakes from the Freewheelin' sessions at Aquarium Drunkard.

Jonathan Kiefer at Maissoneuve on Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man: "Cohen is so good that even an untimely, mediocre movie about him—in which he barely performs any of his own music—is going to resonate, and this one does."

Filmbrain: "Based on Wallace Markfield's cynical novel To an Early Grave, Bye Bye Braverman is one of the most New York City-specific films I've come across - where Manhattan neighborhoods are used to draw subtle distinctions between four nearly identical characters, and where a working knowledge of Brooklyn is virtually a requirement to fully appreciate the film. It also happens to be the most Jewish of New York comedies, to the extent that it makes Woody Allen look like a sheygets."

Enough with the "Madagascar knock-offs," writes Aaron Hillis for IFC News. "Finding life along the major festival circuit and even some noteworthy theatrical releases across the country, a fresh crop of animated features are demonstrating darker, more mature, and downright arthouse sensibilities."

For whatever reason - does he need a reason? - Jack Sommersby offers a lists of the best films of 1980 through 1986, ten for each year, at Hollywood Bitchslap.

James Flynn is working his way through the WGA's "101 Greatest Screenplays."

The BBC: "Composer Sir Malcolm Arnold has died in hospital after a brief illness at the age of 84." And tributes have been coming in for the man who scored Bridge on the River Kwai.

See the Banskys Angelina Jolie just bought at CityRag. Via Anne Thompson.

Online viewing tip #1. Tom Sutpen introduces Berthold Bartosch's L'Idée, a 1930/32 adaption of "a 1920 volume by Belgian graphic artist Frans Masereel" and "one of the most poignant expressions in all animated film."

Online viewing tip #2. John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Variations V at the DVblog.

Online viewing #3. David Bowie on Extras. Via Ed Champion.

Updates: Viewable at Crooks and Liars, "Bill Maher and his panel - which included a Muslim (Reza Aslan), a conservative Christian (Sandy Rios), and a liberal Episcopalian (Bradley Whitford) - discussed the underlying issues of [Jesus Camp] and the notion of raising and teaching 'Christian soldiers' to fight in God's army."

And via Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker, Jeffrey Overstreet in Christianity Today: "Some Christian media personalities are speaking out against the movie, but for differing reasons. A few accuse the filmmakers of trying to discredit Fischer and her camp, and they rush to the defense of the film's subjects, saying that their methods of worship and education are to be celebrated. Others are criticizing the film by saying that this documentary footage severely misrepresents Christianity, and that it has been framed to draw viewers into viewing Christians as lunatics."

Posted by dwhudson at September 25, 2006 6:45 AM