Shorts, 5/11.

"In March, we asked you to let us know what the best ever non-English films were," the Guardian reminds its readers. The votes are in, the top 40's listed and David Thomson, Andrew Pulver and Xan Brooks comment on the top 20.

Also, Peter Bradshaw on #5, The Battle of Algiers, "of its time in many ways, yet somehow more extreme, and more contemporary, than anything else around." More from Anthony Quinn in the Independent.

"After the acclaim that greeted his first drama documentary, Ghosts, about the Chinese cocklepickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, [Nick] Broomfield has turned his sights on one of the most controversial, morally complex stories of our time: the War in Iraq," reports Catherine Philp in the London Times. "And, within that, one of the most fraught and complex stories of all – the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, already darkly referred to as the My Lai of Iraq."

Tim Robey in the Telegraph on The Night of the Sunflowers: "This is virtuoso storytelling, laced with the insidious omens and reversals of a top-flight Greek tragedy." More from Derek Malcolm in the Evening Standard.

Back in the Guardian:

• Frank Cottrell Boyce tells the story behind Grow Your Own.

• Andrew Pulver meets Elliot Tucker, director of Ghetto Warriors, a documentary about Jewish boxers of the 1920s and 30s.

• David Thomson profiles David Fincher.

"Cult Hammer horror films will return to the big screen after the company behind the movies was sold to a group headed by Big Brother creator John de Mol," reports the BBC. David Bennun, blogging for the Guardian, comments: "[T]the prospect of new films created under the Hammer brand is one to induce genuine dread."

"Casting About may be a definitive account of the cinematic audition process, yet what makes it one of this year's finest documentaries (so far) is its even more penetrating portrait of the craft of acting," writes Nick Schager. More from Matt Zoller Seitz in the New York Times.

Also at Slant, Ed Gonzalez on Six Days: "The Middle East for Dummies gets the job done better and leaves you with less of a headache."

"[T]he feats that Sandman performs in comic books and in Spider-Man 3 as he robs banks and tangles with our arachnid hero often correctly display the fascinating properties of granular materials," notes James Kakalios, author of The Physics of Superheroes.

Also in the New York Times:

• AO Scott on Georgia Rule: "Working against its maudlin impulses with lively humor, and at the same time undercutting its laughs with some hard, ugly themes, this movie is neither a standard weepie nor a comforting dramedy. It's an interesting, maddening mess - not a terrible movie, and by no means a dull one."

• "The Ex never quite delivers what it promises," writes Stephen Holden. "The movie's last-minute change of title from Fast Track to The Ex suggests how conceptually divided against itself the final product is." More from Nick Schager at Slant.

• "Magic realism is a tricky thing to pull off in a movie, and Disappearances, the third of [Jay] Craven's films based on [Howard Frank] Mosher's novels, only occasionally succeeds," writes Stephen Holden, who does have a good word, though, for "[Kris] Kristofferson and [Geneviève] Bujold's lived-in, weather-beaten portrayals." More from Julia Wallace in the Voice.

• Jeannette Catsoulis: "With its tone of unremitting gentility Provoked may be the most restrained wife-beating drama ever to grace a movie screen." Also, "Giving 'inspirational' a good name, Matt Ruskin's vibrant and soulful documentary The Hip Hop Project sets its universal message to an inner-city beat." And The Salon "strains to wring laughs from a premise already played out by the superior Barbershop films.

• Neil Genzlinger on Duck: "[M]an and duck wander across Los Angeles heading for the beach. The quirky characters they meet aren't quirky enough, and the political points [director Nic] Bettauer sprinkles into her script thud awkwardly."

• Matt Zoller Seitz on ShowBusiness, a doc that follows four Broadway musicals: "A third-act roll call of canceled productions - some of which closed before they officially opened - makes one marvel at the stamina of artists who devote themselves to a world of many miseries and few rewards."

L'Iceberg "is endearing and intermittently brilliant, but overlong even at 84 minutes," writes Jürgen Fauth.

Sheila Johnston profiles Cuba Gooding Jr for the Independent.

When Babelgum launches, it'll be "the exclusive online video home of a new [Spike] Lee short film called Jesus Children of America," reports Paul R La Monica for CNN.

Online listening tip. 23 minutes of variety from the SpoutBlog: FilmCouch #19.

Online viewing tip #1. "The films of Jean Painlevé are not very good science, yes, but they're great cinema," writes Ignatius Vishnevetsky, who embeds Le Vampire.

Online viewing tip #2. Bruce Sterling on the narratives inherent in material objects. Via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.

Posted by dwhudson at May 11, 2007 9:22 AM