Shorts, 1/31.

"The Situation, Philip Haas's deftly paced, well-written, and brilliantly infuriating Iraq War thriller is not only the strongest of recent geopolitical hotspot flicks but one that has been designed for maximal agitation," writes J Hoberman.

Also in the Voice:

• Jim Ridley on An Unreasonable Man: "A cornucopia of talking-head rancor, indefatigable idealism, and livid history, the film argues that the crusading activist, organizer, and working man's champion deserves a bigger place in history than as just the Grinch Who Spoiled the Election." More from AO Scott in the New York Times. Related: Ralph Nader's a guest on the Leonard Lopate Show.

• Nathan Lee: "In the Pit's empathy feels strictly skin-deep, its insight even shallower." More from Michael Guillén.

• Scott Foundas on Because I Said So: "[L]ike nearly all of [Michael] Lehmann's post-Heathers work, it's lazy and disinterested—a hack-for-hire job any number of film-school grads could have put through its uninspired paces."

"One of the works in Robert Wilson's VOOM Portraits at the Paula Cooper Gallery - an exhibition (also at the Phillips de Pury & Company gallery) of high-definition video portraits of celebrities posed nearly motionless in drolly theatrical costumes and settings - is a 30-minute, continuously looped, stunningly beautiful video of Winona Ryder as the character Winnie in Samuel Beckett's play Happy Days." And Jonathan Kalb simply raves in the NYT.

Also, Dave Kehr: "Home From the Hill (1960), which has crept into the marketplace as part of the highly worthwhile box set Robert Mitchum: The Signature Collection, from Warner Home Video, is a superb example of [Vincente] Minnelli's method and seems even more effective now that its fading color has been restored and its widescreen framing carefully transferred to DVD."

And Jeannette Catsoulis: Room 314 "has a vérité look and a voyeuristic atmosphere that complement the intimacy of the material."

Jay A Fernandez on a probable sequel to The Departed: "According to the sources, [William] Monahan is not taking the prequel route and is instead developing a wholly original continuation of the story." Also in the Los Angeles Times: Matching actors and directors.

For the Nashville Scene, Noel Murray asks Guillermo del Toro about The Spirit of the Beehive: "The thing is that the film by [Victor] Erice is all about the most tenuous, almost intangible lines between fantasy and reality, that are only laid out by the mind of a child. In my movies, I tend to make the fantasy world manifest. Completely manifest and material."

Joe Leydon remembers Oscar-winning screenwriter and late-blooming pop novelist Sidney Sheldon, 1917 - 2007: "Let this be a lesson to us all: You're never too old to become, for better or worse, a phenomenon."

A stuffed diary entry from Francesca Martin: "Roger Michell, director of Venus, The Mother and Notting Hill, is returning to his theatrical roots. He has signed up to direct two plays: a new work at the National Theatre in London [Joe Penhall's Landscape with Weapons], followed by Harold Pinter's Betrayal at the Donmar Warehouse this summer." Also, "Claire Danes has been dusting down her ballet shoes," A Date with John Waters and: "Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, who co-starred in Y Tu Mamá También in 2001, are reuniting for their next project, a low-budget film written and directed by Carlos Cuarón, brother of Y Tu Mamá director Alfonso."

Also in the Guardian:

• Ronald Bergan remembers Maj-Britt Nilsson, 1924 - 2006. She appeared in Bergman's To Joy, Summer Interlude and Waiting Women.

• "Gulpilil has lasted as the generic indigenous actor longer than most." Germaine Greer on Ten Canoes: "The star of [Rolf] De Heer's film is, as Gulpilil would have wanted, the Arafura swamp, where the reflected blaze of the tropical sun splinters through cycads and paperbarks, against which the naked actors lope with inexpressible grace."

• Jonathan Jones hails the return of the European horror film.

• A quick chat with Janet McTeer.

Michael Atkinson reviews Idiocracy ("it should be seen and kudoed just for its principled stance against the cretinism most American entertainment happily exploits") and Sherrybaby: "[Maggie] Gyllenhaal's Sherry has the burdens of Job, and the actress is so fierce and committed to fleshing out this ex-stripper/hardened abuse victim into three dimensions that it's impossible to forget her." Also at IFC News: "To call Gymkata a footnote on the history of cinema would be to vastly overstate its importance." But for Matt Singer, it's a "cult movie in desperate need of a cult."

Kimberly Chun talks with Werner Herzog about The Wild Blue Yonder, which Cheryl Eddy reviews: "If aliens ever do make it to Earth - if they're not already here, that is - and they're in the market for a documentarian, they need only see Yonder to know Herzog has the necessary cosmonautical chops."

Also in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Lynn Rapaport on Flannel Pajamas: "You may feel you've seen all this before, though not in a movie. The film feels true - eventually to a fault." And at SF360, Max Goldberg reviews both films.

Alison Anders has about half a page to say about each of her ten favorite Criterion DVDs (PDF).

Scott Eyman on Bambi vs Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business: "The odd thing is, although I don't like this book, I think that [David] Mamet is right about a lot of things." Also in the New York Observer, Andrew Sarris on The Lives of Others, "one of the most amazing films I have ever seen on the subject of the state's control over the lives of individuals, both through modern instruments of surveillance and an ingenious ability to recruit and persuade even family members to spy on each other."

More from Mark Asch in the L Magazine: "The Lives of Others is a model of self-containment and moral responsibility - so much so that it starts to feel like a filmed syllabus."

"Tommy Lee Jones is set to topline the feature film version of James Lee Burke's novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, adapted by Mary Olson-Kromolowski and Jerzy Kromolowski," reports Production Weekly.

"Bob Hoskins is joining the cast of screenwriter-director Neil Marshall's Doomsday." The Hollywood Reporter has more.

Good reading: David Bordwell recommends Gary Giddins.

The 2006 NicksFlicksPicks Honorees: the countdown begins.

"Careful," begins Zach Campbell: "I'm not making an endorsement here. But I would like to say that Tony Scott is one of the most interesting filmmakers in Hollywood today, precisely because he so baldly extracts essences to be found in contemporary commercial cinema."

Reverse Shot writers "herald those films in their top tens of the year that, for whatever reasons, didn't end up in the cumulative Reverse Shot top ten." Also: "Approximately a minute and half into Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, I was already blown away."

And Jeff Reichert reviews Love on the Ground and The Gang of Four together "in the interests of teasing out some of major themes of his works while getting through as much Rivette as possible for the benefit of the uninitiated."

Acquarello reviews Jon Jost's La Lunga Ombra, "a provocative, broader exposition on the intangible, often corrosive collateral damage of psychological warfare and demoralization."

John Adair watches Jerzy Stuhr's Big Animal, which "bubbles over with life, quirkiness, and outright laughter. Yet this light-hearted manner never dominates the film, as comedy and drama intertwine to provide opportunities for complex sets of responses at any particular moment."

Grenouille, the supernaturally gifted and handicapped central figure of Perfume, "a savior who understands the essence and nature of our souls better than we do"? Timothy Stanley argues his case at Metaphilm.

Ryan Wu won't be watching Miami Vice again; but he might revisit The Prestige.

At Koreanfilm.org, Duncan Mitchel finds the TV serial drama Shoot for the Stars frustrating but irresistible.

Online viewing tip #1. Mike Wallace interviews Ayn Rand. Via Coudal Partners.

Online viewing tip #2. The trailer for Bunker Hill, Kevin Willmott's followup on CSA: Confederate States of America, is at the site.

Online viewing tip #3. Hugh Harmon's Peace on Earth at greg.org.

Posted by dwhudson at January 31, 2007 6:20 AM