Weekend shorts.

"Amid discussions of its historical and political ramifications, it can be easy to lose sight of the all-too-human costs of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, which makes the personalized, micro-view of a documentary such as Encounter Point all the more vital and refreshing," writes Mark Olsen.

Also in the Los Angeles Times:

• Clare Aigner: "In a snowy Berlin, where right-wing extremism is on the rise and skinheads linger, the long applause for the world premiere of I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal a documentary about the Nazi hunter who died in 2005, seemed especially poignant."

• "Crowned at Cannes one minute only to be buried in Britain the next, Ken Loach's new film, The Wind That Shakes the Barley arrives in the US with a rabble-rousing reputation," writes Tobias Gray.

• Dennis Lim looks back on how the Weinsteins threw the brakes on Wisit Sasanatieng's rising star before it even tipped up over the horizon - and how Magnolia has rescued Tears of the Black Tiger six years on. And Kevin Thomas raves.

• Scarlet Cheng talks with Danièle Thompson about Avenue Montaigne, which Kenneth Turan finds is "as much a love note to creative types and those who appreciate them (in an American remake they'd all be movie stars) as it is about the reasons we make the life choices we do. Avenue Montaigne may not be a centimeter deeper than it needs to be, but you also won't be feeling that your pocket was picked when it's over."
  
• Kevin Thomas reviews Ingrid: "Clearly, Bergman, who died on her 67th birthday in 1982, intended [Charlotte] Chandler to tell her life story, and Chandler's description of this book as a 'personal biography' is apt, although it ends up being as much a biography of [Roberto] Rossellini and is all the richer for it." More books: Tom Beer on reissues of two novels by Patrick Hamilton, who wrote the plays, Rope and Gas Light. And Edward Champion reviews William T Vollmann's Poor People.

• Susan King views a few new DVD releases.

"Controversial director Abel Ferrara has announced plans to adapt Italian author Giuseppe Farrandino's bestselling novel Pericle il Nero (Pericles the Black Man) for the big screen," reports Time Out's Chris Tilly. "What's so interesting about that I hear you cry? Well, Ferrara's producer claims that the film will 'revisit' the director's notorious 1992 cop flick Bad Lieutenant."

Volker Schlöndorff's Strajk (Strike) was first debated in the Polish papers; now, it's the German papers' turn, and signandsight translates comments from Andrzej Wajda, who defends the film, and Anna Walentynowicz, who inspired the film but now denounces it.

"Caroline Link, a foreign-language Oscar winner in 2003 with Nowhere in Africa, is returning to Germany for her new film, Im Winter ein Jahr (A Year in Winter), an adaptation of the Scott Campbell novel Aftermath." Scott Roxborough in the Hollywood Reporter. The book itself doesn't seem to have been released.

At european-films.net, Boyd van Hoeij talks with Daniel Sánchez Arévalo about his award-winning Azuloscurocasinegro (DarkBlueAlmostBlack).

"A deadpan comedy that evolves into a wry, politicized examination of truth, 12:08 East of Bucharest reconfirms - on the heels of last year's The Death of Mr Lazarescu - Romania's emergence as a budding cinematic mecca," writes Nick Schager. Also, Beyond the Gates is not "a definitive cinematic statement on the Rwandan genocide but certainly a far preferable dramatic treatment of the atrocity than Hotel Rwanda." And: Adam's Apples "is both too flippant to be moving as a spiritual allegory and too clumsy and unfunny to succeed as a deadpan comedy."

Also at Slant, "Boy Culture remains one of those rare gay films to show serious concern for the way issues of class, age, race, and identity affect queer men young and old," writes Ed Gonzalez. And for Rob Humanick, Reno 911!: Miami "suffers the most from a timid lack of comedic reach."

In the Guardian:

• John Patterson on Midnight Movies: From the Margins to the Mainstream; the doc is "based on the still-definitive 1983 survey, Midnight Movies, by two of America's best male film critics, Jonathan Rosenbaum and J Hoberman, who also appear as commentators, and it examines the crucial role of six cult classics in changing American cinema forever." Also: An ode to the grindhouses of his youth.

• "[T]he idea that this extravagantly beautiful 24-year-old American, born in Brooklyn, should be entrusted with the task of playing the home-counties spinster who wrote all their favorite novels must seem like the worst kind of Hollywood blasphemy." So Leo Benedictus asks Anne Hathaway about playing a young Jane Austen in the upcoming Becoming Jane. Related: For the Telegraph, Craig McLean talks with James McAvoy about his role, Tom Lefroy, the "real" Mr Darcy.

• "Eddie Marsan may not be a household name but you'll remember the face." Glenn Watson meets him to talk about The Illusionist, which Peter Bradshaw quite likes.

• More interviews: Simon Hattenstone with Sienna Miller, David Whitehouse with Larry Clark and Emma Brockes with Nora Ephron.

In the London Times, Kevin Maher meets Eva Mendes and Edward Norton, while Ian Johns talks with Danny Glover and recommends The Killing Fields, Pauline McLeod interviews A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints writer-director Dito Montiel and there's a David Lynch double feature, too, from Rosie Millard and Ryan Gilbey.

Ryan Gilbey also talks with Richard Linklater about Fast Food Nation, but in the New Statesman.

"Just why are so many people making movies about the seedy and often banal underbelly of espionage?" wonders Geoffrey Macnab. Also in the Independent, Chris Sullivan talks with Hilary Swank and, "Did the Queen see The Queen?" Ed Caesar looks into several cases of real people catching (or sometimes avoiding) movie versions of themselves.

In the New York Times:

• "In the deathbed drama Two Weeks, Sally Field creates an agonizing portrait of Anita Bergman, a middle-aged American everywoman in the final stages of ovarian cancer," writes Stephen Holden. "In many ways Two Weeks is a knowing cinematic primer on what to expect when a parent dies. I should add, however, that it presents the best possible scenario of an extremely painful rite of passage." (More from Ed Gonzalez at Slant and Nick Schager at Cinematical.) Also, "Jay Corcoran's riveting, X-ray-acute documentary Rock Bottom... is a ground-level examination of the crystal meth epidemic in gay New York."

• AO Scott on Wild Hogs: "Somebody needed to revive the City Slickers formula, and this time the job has gone to Brad Copeland, who wrote the screenplay, and Walt Becker, who directed.... [Martin] Lawrence and [Tim] Allen, who have never aspired very far beyond their affable television-comedy personas, are easier to watch than [John] Travolta or [William H] Macy, who both undertake what can only be called acting. This is more than the picture deserves, but then again, so is Ray Liotta, as the chieftain of the bad bikers, and so is [Marisa] Tomei." More from Fernando F Croce at Slant.

• Jeannette Catsoulis on The Cats of Mirikitani: "[W]hat began as an interesting portrait of an outsider artist becomes a fascinating story of injustice and endurance."

• Edmund White: "The really fascinating years, and the centerpiece of this absorbing volume of [Tennessee] Williams's notebooks, edited and annotated by the independent scholar Margaret Bradham Thornton, are those that preceded and accompanied his first two triumphs in the theater, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)."

• Alessandra Stanley finds that The Lost Tomb of Jesus "relies more on 'what if' than 'here's how.'"

• Julie Bosman reports on yet another editorial shakeup at the Village Voice.

"Recently, a group of directors, writers and producers led by Park Chan-wook, troubled by the current state of Korean cinema, have organized a festival to raise public awareness of older movies," notes Jon Pais in a review of Hyperbola of Youth at Twitch. "Park says that watching old films helps produce new ones, and they are often more fun and refreshing to watch. Bong Joon-ho and Im Sang-soo, two engaged directors whose works are continually challenging, are to some extent today's successors to Han Hyung-mo's legacy."

"What a fine piece of writing - and meta-film criticism - that is!" Jim Emerson's been reading Tom McCarthy's novel, Remainder.

The Chicago Reader's JR Jones on An Unreasonable Man: "By the end of the movie [Henriette] Mantel and [Steven] Skrovan manage to put any progressive voter in a bind: if you're not willing to vote based on real beliefs, why should your representatives be expected to act on them?" More from Jim Emerson at RogerEbert.com.

At openDemocracy, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, author of two books on the Japanese military, has a few minor bones to pick with Letters from Iwo Jima, "Yet overall, the film speaks to its intended audience - Japanese as much as American - with integrity."

"The creators of Amazing Grace have performed a service in calling attention to a significant historical period and one of its most worthy representatives," writes Joanne Laurier at the WSWS.

Noy Thrupkaew in the American Prospect: "The Lives of Others would be too meta-clever to bear - if it didn't work so damn well."

"Once I caught a whiff of Antonioni's structural genius, where every image informs every other one, from the baroque finale to the wobbly handheld opener, his work opened up for me," writes Ryland Walker Knight at the House Next Door.

David Lowery offers three thoughts on Abbas Kiarostami and, more specifically, Taste of Cherry.

What Did the Lady Forget? "departs from Ozu's usual filmography with a different social class setting and a world essentialy dominated by powerful women," notes Harry Tuttle. And: "The ending is beautiful!"

"Hawks's His Girl Friday has long been my favorite movie, but I know that Only Angels Have Wings is better," writes That Little Round-Headed Boy.

"Spring used to be the artistic dead end period of the cinematic season... Then, like a promise detected in the breeze, something changed." Bill Gibron previews the highlights for PopMatters. Meanwhile, at Cinematical, Scott Weinberg's already looking ahead to the summer.

Duelling LA Confidential sequels? Christopher Campbell looks into it at Cinematical.

The Telegraph's John Hiscock interviews George Clooney.

Carolina A Miranda talks with Gael García Bernal for Time.

"The first film produced by a social network, LiveMansion is a thriller set in a mega-mansion." They're holding a contest to pick a director and Spike Lee will judge the final round.

Online glancing tip. Bong Joon-Ho's Leica.

Online viewing tip #1. LX.TV profiles Eve Sussman:

Online viewing tip #2. Clips accompany Daniel Kasman's "Notes on the camera of Béla Tarr: Damnation (1988) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)."

Online viewing tips. At Twitch, Todd points to a new and trailer for Everything's Gone Green and a trailer for Taweewat Wantha's The Sperm

Posted by dwhudson at March 3, 2007 2:11 PM