Really short shorts, 2/12.

The new issue of Senses of Cinema features the "2006 World Poll" and special sections on Michael Mann, "The Moral of Auteur Theory," Cinema Engagé and Independent Australian Cinema. Plus, of course, reviews of books and DVDs, festival reports and five new entries in the Great Directors critical database: Guy Debord, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Rouben Mamoulian, George Romero and King Vidor.

New at Midnight Eye: Eija Niskanen's overview of the work of Mikio Naruse and Jaspar Sharp's review of his Repast, the results of the Readers Poll (Linda Linda Linda!) and Adam Campbell on Starfish Hotel.

It's Monday, which means there's another round of fresh reviews, interviews and, yes, news at IFC News.

In the New York Review of Books, Daniel Mendelsohn explains why, when it comes to Pedro Almodóvar, "exchanges in his films about the nature and merits of popular genres and their ability to represent reality are not to be taken casually."

Jane Mayer in the New Yorker on the "politics of the man behind 24."

David Edelstein, New York, Days of Glory.

Avenue Montaigne is "nobody's idea of a masterpiece," writes Nick Pinkerton at indieWIRE, "but it shows off Paris in a faintly enchanted light that could make Parisians proud... [Y]ou could call it fluff and you'd be right. But it stays within its own modest boundaries, so why get peevish?"

Online viewing tip. Sarah Polley's I Shout Love at Film Threat.

Posted by dwhudson at February 12, 2007 2:12 PM