Shorts, 5/14.

"90 per cent of the people we called told us they wanted to come," Caroline Baron, production coördinator for Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance tells Mark Singer in his piece on a cast and crew reunion. "There was only one actor we weren't able to find. Ryan O'Neal. Whereabouts unknown."

Also in the New Yorker, Anthony Lane on The Wendell Baker Story: "Some people make films in homage to Ingmar Bergman, others nod to the French New Wave, but only the Wilsons would think to follow in the footsteps of Burt Reynolds."

"One of Germany's most singular achievements is to have associated itself so intimately in the world's imagination with the darkest evils of the two worst political systems of the most murderous century in human history." So begins a consideration in the New York Review of Books of The Lives of Others and a companion book by director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. When historian Timothy Garton Ash first saw the film, he was "powerfully affected," though at the same time, he had his objections: "'No! It was not really like that. This is all too highly colored, romantic, even melodramatic; in reality, it was all much grayer, more tawdry and banal'.... But these objections are in an important sense beside the point. The point is that this is a movie. It uses the syntax and conventions of Hollywood to convey to the widest possible audience some part of the truth about life under the Stasi, and the larger truths that experience revealed about human nature."

Also: Anthony Grafton on Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia.

"A deep depression has left Danish film director Lars von Trier unable to work and is threatening his career, he told the Danish newspaper Politiken on Saturday." Reuters also reports that his next project, Antichrist is now pretty much up in the air.

Tim Lucas celebrates Jess Franco's 77th.

"Class Relations tells a story that evokes monolithic institutions, impervious authorities, and slippages of justice; one could easily read it as a black comedy, but Straub-Huillet are more profoundly invested in its themes, once describing it as 'a journey into the land of vampires.'" Doug Cummings on their 1984 adaptation of Kafka's Amerika.

It was a huge hit in Mexico and LA and Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas named it one of the best films of 2000. Then the US distributor ran out of money, and that was the end of the road. Until now. Reed Johnson talks with writer-director Salvador Carrasco about the return of The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista).

Also in the LAT:

• "With little fanfare, Hollywood has begun chronicling and critiquing the Iraq war even before it has ended." Borzou Daragahi looks ahead to Battle for Haditha, No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah, Stop Loss and Sweet Relief.

• Bruce Wallace talks with the filmmakers behind American Pastime, a story about baseball played in the internment camps the US threw its Japanese citizens into during WWII.

• Rachel Abramowitz profiles Judd Apatow.

In a story that begins on the front page of Fade In Online, Stefan Avalos delves into the scandal bubbling up and over the Writer's Guild of America's (non-)distribution of foreign levies owed to writers, some of whom are members, some of whom aren't. Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay rounds up a series of related stories and writes, "It's a complicated story but well worth following for several reasons, not the least of which is what it says about our current and possibly future system of copyright."

"To what extent has the DVD changed viewing habits and movie storytelling?" asks David Bordwell. "Let's tackle the question first from the standpoint of the viewer. I think we can get help by recognizing this basic point: The DVD made a movie more like a book."

The Self-Styled Siren lists half a dozen details she loves in Kiss Me Kate.

Clare Shine meets James Thiérrée, whose show Au revoir parapluie runs in Paris through the end of the month: "When the rest of us were falling off bikes, he was mastering the trapeze - along with the violin, several languages and much else. Oh, and his grandfather was Charlie Chaplin." Also in the Financial Times, Peter Aspden on A Matter of Life and Death.

Interesting idea for a piece and the results aren't bad at all: Michael Wilson watches The Naked City with NYC Police Commissioner Raymond W Kelly: "Playing the film in a high-tech conference room on the building's 14th floor felt like prying open a policeman's time capsule, a black-and-white whodunit unfolding amid equipment and gadgets unimagined in 1948. On another wall, muted screens played CNN and Al Jazeera, while digital clocks marked time in Baghdad and other faraway cities."

Also in the New York Times:

• The Victorine studios, where Truffaut's Day for Night and Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief were filmed, may be on the up-n-up again. Dana Kennedy reports from Nice.

• Some TV shows and movies are taking what Caryn James describes as "an unspoken 9/11 approach, referring to the events without using the actual words."

• Andy Webster pans Delta Farce.

Simon Callow on Steven Bach's Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl: "Patiently, systematically, he dismantles each of her evasions, revealing a woman who was utterly ruthless in pursuit of her work and intensely devoted to Hitler and his cause. Bach takes care not to demonise her, but he doesn't need to: the record does that for him." Also in the Guardian, John Patterson's challenge: "Where's the black Craig Brewer when we need him?"

And the Guardian's G2 today is devoted entirely to smoking - in fashion, art and so on, and Zoe Williams takes up the evolution of the habit in movies and on TV: "The more aberrant this habit becomes, the more screen symbolism it has. On screen, nobody, ever, just fancies a fag."

John Moore has probably seen Withnail and I around 50 times. "[I]t is perfect and stands alone," he blogs for the Guardian. "The trouble is, I want to know what happened next. I want a sequel, set now."

"[Kon] Ichikawa might suffer from the same underrating as Louis Malle, suggests Mark Labowskie at PopMatters. "[T]hey're both such versatile directors, always tackling new subject matter and genres, that they are inevitably overshadowed by those with a more rigidly distinct style (you can spot an Ozu film in about five seconds)."

Star Wars tops a list of the most influential film as far as visual effects are concerned; not just any list, but the one compiled by the Visual Effects Society. Steve Bryant types out nine more titles and links to a PDF with the rest. Blogging for the Guardian, Peter Wright claims that an obsession with special effects ruined George Lucas's series.

Anne M Hockens has "a very definite sense of what film noir is - so no color films on this list or sub-genres like noir western, gangster films, heist films or police procedurals, and nothing past the 50s."

Summer in the city: Singapore, that is. Stefan previews the season for Twitch.

To what extent should "tidbits regarding the personal circumstances of artists involved in the making of the film" be considered in a review, if at all, asks the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.

At 10 Zen Monkeys, RU Sirius interviews Air Guitar Nation director Alexandra Lipsitz and former Air Guitar World Champion C Diddy.

Online browsing tip #1. "In Belarus, Hollywood movies are often advertised with hand-painted billboards," writes xanthippeia. Via Coudal Partners.

Online browsing tip #2. View, 2nd series, No 4, "Americana Fantastica," January 1943, with a cover and several pages designed by Joseph Cornell. Via John Coulthart.

Online viewing tip. "What's a day in the life of Natalie Portman like?" Thanks, Jerry!

Online viewing tips. You've seen Peer Pressure. But have you seen the remake?

Posted by dwhudson at May 14, 2007 9:22 AM