Shorts, 10/23.

"If we begin to understand how film 'thinks' we will start to understand how moving images affect our life and being," writes Film-Philosophy editor Daniel Frampton, who's got a new book out, Filmosophy, from Wallflower Press. "As the Hungarian film theorist Béla Balázs wrote back in 1945: 'We must be better connoisseurs of the film if we are not to be as much at the mercy of perhaps the greatest intellectual and spiritual influence of our age as to some blind and irresistible elemental force.'"

Also in the Guardian:

• Saima Raza on celebrations marking the end of Ramadan: "Having spent the month praying for eternal salvation, worshippers decide to take a brief intermission and visit the gods of Bollywood."

• Watching Notting Hill, Jacques Perreti is struck by a realization: "Jesus, I say to myself, this film isn't about Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant at all! It's about Madonna meeting Guy Ritchie."

• Stephen Moss remembers wildlife filmmaker Heinz Sielmann, 1917 - 2006.

If you think you're going to get a shot at seeing I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed - and how you would in the foreseeable future, I have no idea - you need to read Philip French's review, which is more than just a review, actually. More like a historical primer. Also in the Observer, Killian Fox profiles Vera Farmiga and Jason Burke reports that a French distributor has picked up The Schoolgirl's Diary, a film from North Korea for which Kim Jon-il himself is credited as an advisor.

On first viewing, David Bordwell has eight notes on Satantango.

"It is interesting to note that throughout the evolution of Belgian cinema, the reality captured on film is not only rooted in the physical, but also in the interiority of the imagination." Acquarello reviews Philip Mosley's Split Screen: Belgian Cinema and Cultural Identity.

Shi Guori turns a truck into a camera obscura; Jori Finkel tags along for the New York Times as he photographs the Hollywood sign.

David Edelstein: "Ryan Murphy's jaunty screen version of Running With Scissors proves that nothing consecrates one's depiction of a narcissistic mother like having her embodied by Annette Bening." Also in New York, the magazine: "New York may be in the middle of a Hollywood moment, but when it comes to the X-rated-movie business, the city will never rival the Valley," writes William Van Meter. "We have few porn kings living among us, much to the chagrin of just about no one. In fact, now that Bob Guccione has been stripped of his townhouse, we may have only one bona fide member of porn royalty, self-styled emperor though he is: Michael Lucas, age 34, the president of New York's largest gay-adult-film company, Lucas Entertainment, and its biggest star, and a man perfectly incapable of keeping his inner monologue to himself."

David Thomson remembers Gillo Pontecorvo - and of course, The Battle of Algiers, "one of the seminal films about purposeful violence in the 20th century." Also in the Independent, Tom Rosenthal on the two adaptations of All the King's Men.

Nick Schager in Slant on Death of a President: "[Gabriel] Range's aesthetic trickery isn't nearly as seamless or as clever as that found in Kevin Willmott's CSA: Confederate States of America, but it's his project's total lack of ingenuity that dooms it to irrelevance."

At Twitch, James Maruyama recommends Tetsuya Nakashima's followup to Kamikaze Girls, Memories of Matsuko.

Production Weekly is reporting that George Clooney and Joel and Ethan Coen will be reuniting for an adaptation of Admiral Stansfield Turner's novel, Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence. Via Chris Ullrich at Cinematical. Also: "Kathryn Bigelow has been tapped to helm the Iraq-set action drama The Hurt Locker which follows the exploits of an elite bomb disposal unit."

"The Subversive Nub was started in Nov 2005 by Philip Hood as an easily accessible place to find the films from Amos Vogel's influential book on film as a subversive art." Via filmtagebuch.

"What makes a great movie monologue?" asks Edward Copeland. Whatever your definition, he offers five of the best at the House Next Door.

Both Daniel Robert Epstein (SuicideGirls) and Aaron Hillis (IFC News) talk with Bobcat Goldthwait about Sleeping Dogs Lie.

Jaspar Rees meets up with Peter O'Toole for the London Times.

A week ago, Variety unveiled its new site; today, it's the Hollywood Reporter's turn.

Online browsing tip. Vintage tech via Coudal Partners.

Online viewing tip #1. Jack Black on piracy. Via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.

Online viewing tip #2. James Israel's got the first four minutes of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Posted by dwhudson at October 23, 2006 11:38 AM