Shorts, fests, etc, 2/21.

Taro Goto, Assistant Director of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, has not only been taking measure of Japanese responses to Letters From Iwo Jima for the San Francisco Bay Guardian but has also interviewed Kiyoshi Kurosawa, asking the director about his great admiration for Clint Eastwood: "I would say that right now he is about to surpass his spiritual and technical mentor, Don Siegel. Thanks to Eastwood's guiding hand, it's possible that cinema may be breaking away from a previously completed 'form' and entering completely new territory. That's a remarkable thing."

"Imagine delivering a script right into Liz Taylor's hands, reassuring Peter Lorre that he would not always be type-cast as a horror fiend, arguing with America's sweetheart, Donna Reed, about whether she should portray a murderess in her next picture. And how about Donald O'Connor tap-dancing into my office, running up the wall, flipping and sliding on to my desk in the splits? He'd cross his eyes and chirp, 'What's cookin', kid?'" In the Guardian, Clancy Sigal recalls his days as a Hollywood agent in the 50s, when his politics could have got him canned if his bosses hadn't determinedly looked the other way: "By day, I was a 'ten percenter' (alternatively, 'flesh peddler'); by night a radical organiser."

"Robert Altman, the pirate king of American filmmaking, was honored yesterday at the Majestic Theater in Manhattan by friends and colleagues including Lily Tomlin, EL Doctorow, Harry Belafonte, Julianne Moore, Kevin Kline and Tim Robbins," reports David Carr (more from ST VanAirsdale at the Reeler and Gregg Goldstein in the Hollywood Reporter). Also in the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis on Cocaine Angel: "Michael Tully's shambling observation of a day (and a bit more) in the life of Scott (Damian Lahey, who also wrote the wisp of a story) refuses to wallow in addiction angst."

"Nue propriété (Private Property) was part of my Best Films of 2006 list and will be released in France today (Wednesday), in Italy on March 16 and in the Netherlands on April 5." European-films.net editor Boyd van Hoeij talks with Belgian director Joachim Lafosse.

"A lot of the noteworthy work at this year's Berlin International Film Festival - good and bad - was by female directors or centered on memorable female characters," writes Dennis Lim. His Competition favorite: Jacques Rivette's Don't Touch the Axe (Ne touchez pas la hache).

Also at indieWIRE, Brian Brooks: "Novelist/director Paul Auster's The Inner Life of Martin Frost will open the 36th New Directors/New Films series slated for March 21 - April 1." A full list of titles and brief descriptions follows.

And Michael Koresky: "An 80s throwback, not just in its off-the-shoulder pink sweaters and heavily Cured soundtrack, but in its narrative rhythms and willfully wispy teen rom-com resolutions, Starter for 10 is so dead set on juvenilia that it could only possibly appeal to an adolescent audience - one that by now would undoubtedly be unable to fittingly revel in the film's generational hallmarks and touchstones." More from Jason Bogdaneris in the L Magazine, where Mark Asch offers his take on The Wayward Cloud.

The characters of Colossal Youth live "in the ever eroding margins of the visible, struggling to emerge from the liminal before receding into the shadows," writes acquarello.

"What Is It? is at once less gratuitous and more insipid than anybody has given it credit for," writes Michael Joshua Rowin at Reverse Shot. "[W]hile [Crispin] Glover's purpose is wholly sincere and even somewhat brave, his approach is totally wrong and his directorial skills remarkably insufficient for such a provocative task. In order to shape taboo busting into genuine subversion, the attitudes propelling What Is It? need a creative force whose sensibility matches his commitment. Glover is not that creative force."

"There's no avoiding naked hippies in a movie called Commune, but Jonathan Berman's documentary about the Siskiyou County enclave known as Black Bear Ranch is no mere nostalgia trip," writes Cheryl Eddy in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

"Let's help Opie out, cine-cynics!" proposes the cinetrix in reaction to the most bizarre remake news of the year so far: "What would you rename Cache?"

"Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise in the same movie?!?" hollers Quint at AICN. Well, yes. Nicole Sperling has a few details in the Hollywood Reporter.

Having just hosted one, Jim Emerson reflects on the extent to which Blog-a-Thons ought to be run or simply left to run their own courses.

Online listening tip. "Here's the audio track from [Portrait of Jason] in its entirety, which works remarkably well like a good episode of This American Life would," writes Bret at CineFile Video.

Online viewing tip. The trailer for The Joy of Life.

Posted by dwhudson at February 21, 2007 8:28 AM