Shorts, 4/17.

"He was the Crosby, the Sinatra, the Elvis of Mexico," writes Time's Richard Corliss. Pedro Infante was also "an ornament of Mexico's Golden Age (La é poca de Oro del Cine Mejicano), a two-decade stretch of potent moviemaking."

Up-n-coming:

• "Columbia has landed Clive Owen to topline The International an action-thriller about an Interpol agent who investigates corruption at powerful banking institutions. The pic will be directed by Tom Tykwer, with lensing skedded to begin in September." Diane Garrett reports for Variety.

• Time Out's Chris Tilly: "Ridley Scott has obtained the rights to Tom Rob Smith's debut novel Child 44, a thriller revolving around a series of murders in Stalinist Russia."

• More news of the up-n-coming: Alison Willmore at IFC News.

"The Game is Over is worth looking at for its images of swinging Parisians dancing to the tunes of Arthur Brown before he became the God of Hellfire," writes Peter Nellhaus. "The film also suggests that [Roger] Vadim as a filmmaker was a bit more than the sum of his leading ladies voluptuous parts."

On the DVD front:

• Doug Block strikes a DVD deal for 51 Birch Street.

• "In a decade replete with remarkable satires - Dr Strangelove comes to mind - Bedazzled remains one of the finest, a film both of lightness and purpose, stocked with some very big laughs.... Peter Cook, "who wrote the screenplay, endlessly spouts quotable lines with a dry, absurdist quality... that clearly left an impression on the up-and-coming humorists who later became the Monty Python troupe." Other DVDs Dave Kehr reviews in the New York Times: "Anchor Bay Entertainment, fulfilling its mission of becoming the Criterion Collection of genre pictures, has reissued Phantasm in a handsome new widescreen transfer, along with two other films by [Don] Coscarelli.

• At IFC News, Michael Atkinson reviews Sombre, "a stormy, moody, portentous experience, full of evocations of a tormented consciousness... The upshot is unpredictably moving." And: "[Y]ou know going in, and you're not wrong, that [Notes on a Scandal] works best as a stage for two brilliant and epically talented actresses to engage in a very Brit but fascinatingly nasty pas de deux."

• At Cinema Strikes Back, David Austin reviews a Turkish double feature just out from Onar Films showcasing unique approaches to "two of the most popular horror genres of the era - gothic horror and gialli."

• DVD review roundups: DVD Talk and Movie City News.

At ScreenGrab, Leonard Pierce remembers The Ninth Configuration, "one of the most original, audacious and fascinating films of its day, a movie that deserves a far greater audience than it's ever received, even after a long-overdue DVD release in 2002." William Peter Blatty "is a much better director than his other work might indicate; he's usually quite competent behind the camera, and his screenplay is watertight, blooming into a dark exploration of the need to believe and a strange, bloody theodicy while never losing its crazed sense of humor."

"With Fellini as his muse, Leonardo Ricagni attempts to craft a whimsical ode to childhood, friendship, and the divine power of words and knowledge with Goodbye Momo," writes Nick Schager in Slant. "What he comes up with instead is middling Cinema Paradiso magic realism turned lifeless by abundant treacle and a literal approach to his lightly surreal material." Also, Diggers.

"[G]iven the number of truly wretched reduxes that seem to spew forth every year, maybe it's time we propose some guidelines for those who want to dip into the past and supposedly improve it." Lewis Beale offers five tips at the Reeler.

Nathan Rabin at the AV Club:

Like Christopher Walken in Envy, Brando kidnaps the film and sends it spinning in a weird new direction. Which is a shame, because before Brando shows up and takes over, Missouri Breaks ambles along beatifically as a strangely lyrical Western comedy chockfull of cult screenwriter/novelist Thomas McGuane's oddball poetry. It's the kind of film where even a desperado like Nicholson spews honey to Lloyd like "If there's anybody in this district that got a right to think of themselves as wholesome companionship why it's yours truly." If Wes Anderson wrote a revisionist Western comedy it'd probably look and feel a lot like the film's first half.

Remembrances:

• IndieWIRE has put together quite a tribute to James Lyons, with contributions from many of the filmmakers who worked with him. Some amazing comments are coming in as well.

• "Correspondent Alan Bobet has written to inform me of the death of actress Chris Jordan, best-remembered as a standout supporting player in several Joe Sarno films of the 1970s," writes Tim Lucas. "Unfortunately there are no details at present, but the news of Jordan's 'recent' death was announced at an April 5th screening of A Touch of Genie at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in New York City, with Joe Sarno and his wife/assistant Peggy Steffans Sarno in attendance. Considered one of Sarno's lost films until recently, A Touch of Genie is scheduled to be restored and released on DVD this summer by RetroSeduction Cinema, along with The Switch and How to Alter Your Ego, another sex-comedy featuring the same basic cast."

• "Bruce Bennett, who has died aged 100, was, as Herman Brix, an Olympic shot-putter and screen Tarzan, and, as Bennett, he was a stolid, lanky supporting actor of the 1940s and 1950s," remembers Ronald Bergan in the Guardian.

As the Mann National Theater in Westwood CA prepares to lower its curtain for the last time on Thursday night, Jason Whyte writes at Hollywood Bitchslap, "The fact that bland multiplexes survive and gala cinemas like this close down is just another nail in the coffin to the sagging state of moviegoing today, and this gem of a cinema will surely be missed."

SusanP lists the top ten "Most Lovable Cads" at the Film Experience.

Online chuckle. Alex Ross finds Strauss and Mahler Re-enact Your Favorite Movie Moments.

Online viewing tip. "Will and I were just screwing around and it was like, hey, that's a good idea, let's film that," Adam McKay tells the Los Angeles Times' David Sarno. The Landlord.

Posted by dwhudson at April 17, 2007 3:41 PM