Shorts, 5/15.

"Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are teaming to direct and produce three back-to-back features based on Georges Remi's beloved Belgian comic-strip hero Tintin for DreamWorks. Pics will be produced in full digital 3-D using performance capture technology." Variety's Anne Thompson and Pamela McClintock have the story everyone'll be talking about until Cannes opens tomorrow. For Nikki Finke, this is just one more reason "Time Warner should kick to the curb Mr Lord of the Rants when [Bob] Shaye's contract is up in 2008."

"Wim Wenders said Monday he is beginning work on Palermo Story, a drama based on a Sicilian love affair between a middle-aged German man and a younger local girl." Eric J Lyman has more for the Hollywood Reporter. Evidently, Wenders's intention to set a film in what was once East Germany has been either postponed or forgotten.

Ted Pigeon on the implications of the MPAA's much-discussed intention to crack down on smoking in the movies: "Ever so slightly, we are transforming our art forms into products. The current sanctions of the MPAA best reflect and sustain the view that movies are nothing more than advertising enterprises meant for consumption."

"'This is a project that lies somewhere between Rope and American Psycho with a smattering of Funny Games,' I tell an actor as we sit and drink mint fucking tea." Richard Jobson, blogging for the Guardian, is having a rough time finding a real man to cast in his new movie.

"For anyone who has had the pleasure of walking through the Père Lachaise but struggled to elucidate its inexplicable appeal, Heddy Honigmann's documentary Forever is enlightening without being demystifying," writes Ed Gonzalez.

Also at Slant, Nick Schager on The Wendell Baker Story: "Intermittently stupid and frequently funny... it may not be the most riotous or artful project the Wilson brothers have been involved with, but its breezy, mellow tone and pleasant balance between random silliness and macho sincerity have a nice throwback charm." Joe Leydon definitely recommends catching it and, for the Los Angeles Times, Irene Lacher talks with the brothers.

"Severance is to Hostel as Shaun of the Dead is to Night of the Living Dead. As such, it's yet another pun-intended stab at combining scares and laughs with mixed results," writes Matt Singer for IFC News. Oh, and Even Money is an "overblown mess."

Filmmaker editor Scott Macaulay comments on Cahiers du Cinema's recent assessment of the drawbacks of the current systems of production and distribution in France - and what might be done about them: "[I]f we as American independents could play the role of culture czars for a moment, what we would do?"

Why buy the rights to a comics title when you can sell one? For the LAT, Geoff Boucher talks with Guy Ritchie about his Gamekeeper, part of Virgin Comics' "Director's Cut" series that includes John Woo's 7 Brothers and Shekhar Kapur's Snake Woman.

Julie Taymor's Across the Universe? Bad idea, suspects Bill Gibron at PopMatters.

For the Guardian, Randeep Ramesh profiles Ronnie Screwvala, "has become the most sought after movie producer in Indian cinema with his UTV studio remoulding Bollywood in Hollywood's image." Related: A big "60 Years of Patriotic Cinema" package in Outlook India.

Not exactly a film story, but then not exactly not a film story, either: Nina Berman at Alternet on the Pentagon's rehearsal for a major nuclear detonation.

Online browsing tip. But it's a dangerous one. Do not click and do not proceed unless you're equipped with either a couple of hours or the willpower of a brick. That said, the best way into the UCLA Library's Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920 - 1990 is via Xeni Jardin's entry at Boing Boing. Or click the image here to see "Hollywood Committee for the First Amendment members disembarking plane in Los Angeles, Calif, 1947."

Online viewing tip #1. Matt Singer and Alison Willmore talk with Shane Meadows about This Is England.

Online viewing tip #2. Spike Lee on why he's working with Babelgum.

Online viewing tip #3. Kevin Lee records a commentary track for the first 7½ minutes of Louisiana Story.

Online viewing tip #4. Jim Emerson's found a "contrarian music video." Funny, but the bit about Talking Heads... that's just blasphemy.

Posted by dwhudson at May 15, 2007 5:34 AM