Shorts, 7/5.

Towards the end of Geoff Manaugh's extraordinary interview with Walter Murch back in April, the legendary editor and sound designer referred to a piece by Michelangelo Antonioni on what Manhattan sounds like - or at least sounded like nearly 40 years ago. Now BLDGBLOG is running that essay in full, with an introduction by Murch.

"One purpose of Genius Party is to show the world that there is more to Japanese animation than big and old familiar names like Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo and Mamoru Oshii," writes Mark Schilling in the Japan Times of the new omnibus film. "Mission accomplished, though one would hope the film also serves as a calling card for bigger things." Also, a visit to Studio 4°C.

Nanking debuts in Beijing. The BBC reports.

At the New Republic Online, Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, explains why he worries that A Mighty Heart "will play into the hands of professional obscurers of moral clarity." But the article itself, argues Jim Emerson, is proof that moral relativism is not dead.

The Boston Globe's Ty Burr points to documentary filmmaker Bill Cody's blog for Thank You For My Eyes. He's writing it from northern Iraq and "it makes astonishing reading - a testament to lives that go on and minds that keep growing even as disaster looms."

At the House Next Door, Travis Mackenzie Hoover finds that Pedro Costa's In Vanda's Room "is about people who live painful, desperate lives and yet refuse to budge from the fates they may or may not have chosen but decide to play out either way – people poised on the brink of self-pity who never fall off into the abyss, and who carry on in the face of addiction, invisibility and a general ennui that mere social realism can't contain."

"Studly art-world charlatan Matthew Barney's ritualistic, mythology-making esoterica has always played better as gallery installation than projected on a screen, as his seeming ignorance of (noncompliance with?) cinematic language only emphasizes how superficial and wildly self-indulgent his imagery tends to be," writes Aaron Hillis. "But with his hour-long featurette De Lama Lâmina, a hypnotically rhythmic collaboration with Brazilian-guitar wunderkind Arto Lindsay, the key to appreciating the filmic Barney has finally been made as clear as boiled Vaseline: It's better in tiny doses."

Also in the Voice:

• "Adapted from a play by Jordi Galcerán and directed by Marcelo Piñeyro, The Method retains the facile irony of the stage as it attempts to dramatize the perversities of corporate culture," writes Nathan Lee. "Too clever by half, the plot contrivances deliver flippant satisfactions, and the agile performances keep the twists compelling, if less than credible."

• Ed Halter: "According to Shadow Company, a documentary about the recent, precipitous rise of mercenaries (or, to use their preferred term, private military companies), September 11 and its political aftermath provided the security industry with its own worldwide dot-com boom."

Zach Campbell notes that Dan Callahan, writing up the entry on Joseph Losey for Senses of Cinema's Great Directors database, calls Steaming "a catastrophic adaptation of a bad play," but: "I was actually floored by the film in a lot of ways."

Tim Lucas on Losey's These Are the Damned: "This is one of a select number of films, and perhaps the only Hammer film, that I find grows more profound with the passing years." Also, Ken Russell turned 80 on Tuesday: "Not only have you changed the way I see, you've shown me how to live."

Wishing Gina Lollobrigida a happy 80th yesterday (in German): Daniela Zinser in the Berliner Zeitung, Kai Luehrs-Kaiser in Die Welt and Michael Althen in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Thom at Film of the Year: "Perhaps one of Humphrey Bogart's least remembered films, Black Legion deserves a second look because of its gritty portrayal of how an honest, hardworking family man is transformed into a killer by one of the pseudo-fascist organizations operating in the US before World War II."

July 4 got Craig Keller and Peter Nellhaus thinking about John Ford.

In the Guardian:

• "Conservative politicians have lined up to lambast an EU promotional film that showcases a collection of classic sex scenes from European movies."

• Stuart Jeffries meets Dennis Hopper: "We're having lunch because the Serpentine, after years of wooing, has managed to seduce Hollywood's most enduring screen psychopath to greet guests to its fundraising party next week. Talk about casting against type."

• "Not even the power of wizardry could save the stars from a drenching at last night's European premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

• The Animals Film is being revived on DVD after 25 years. Its maker, Victor Schonfeld, then "an angry young man of documentary cinema," now writes, "I believe it remains an acutely resonant film. By looking at the fate of animals in a human-dominated world with an unblinking gaze, we see how our species is capable of inflicting vast suffering with the flimsiest of rationalizations."

• "John Travolta has hit back at gay rights activists who have called for a boycott of his new film, Hairspray."

• Katie Allen reports on another upcoming online venue for feature films.

AO Scott: "I will confess that the only thing that kept me watching License to Wed until the end (apart from being paid to do so) was the faith, perhaps misplaced, that I will not see a worse movie this year." Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams, the LA Weekly's Ella Taylor and Cinematical's Erik Davis pretty much agree. Related: Matt Singer and Alison Willmore discuss "The Crimes of Robin Williams."

Also in the New York Times, Steve Smith talks with member of Free Speech Zone Productions, whose 2005 tour of "rock clubs and alternative spaces" is documented in Stephen Taylor's The End of New Music: "Presenting classical music in nightclubs to attract young audiences has begun to verge on the commonplace. But what Free Speech Zone was proposing in 2005 was a more comprehensive paradigm shift prompted not by age or aesthetics, but rather by frustration that followed the emotionally charged 2004 presidential race."

"[A]s an adaptation of [Japanese novelist] Kishi Yusuke, whom I am a big fan of, the Korean version Black House leaves much to be desired," writes Kyu Hyun Kim. Also at Koreanfilm.org, Adam Hartzell: "What director Gina Kim presents in Never Forever is a triangle [in which] each [character] seeks something unspoken in the verbal contracts that brought them together. These particular unspokens later risk tearing them each apart."

"That the special effects of a The Taste of Tea look like they were done on someone's home computer adds to the charm of this whimsical tale," writes Peter Nellhaus.

"Stylistically, Broken English is just competent," writes Dennis Harvey at SF360. "But its deft character writing, wry plot turns and attentiveness toward very good actor... are winning. Best of all, it gives Parker Posey a sympathetic, fully dimensionalized role in which she can flex some serious acting muscles beyond her usual displays of comic flair and intelligence."

Dan Sallitt: "If you haven't seen Lady Chatterley yet, you should get a move on: it lost two of its five US theaters in its second week. And, to my surprise (because I was so-so on director Pascale Ferran's first two features), it's amazing."

"It would be tough to find a personal documentary with more going for it than Irene Taylor Brodsky's Hear and Now." Anne S Lewis talks with the filmmaker. Also in the Austin Chronicle, Joe O'Connell meets Catherine Parrington, who "comes to Austin Studios at a time of major transition, with $5 million in city bonds slated to renovate the studios and the recently approved $20 million statewide film incentives program."

"[George C] Scott is terrible in Hardcore, and he's a perfect fit for a film that, while born from [Paul] Schrader's life and personal obsessions, is hamhanded sensationalism masquerading as art," writes Andrew Bemis.

Mike at Esotika Erotica Psychotica finds that Alain Robbe-Grillet's Slow Slidings of Pleasure uses "an almost structural/materialist construction to deliver an utterly enigmatic and interesting story."

Eric Lichtenfeld catches Earthquake and realizes we've got the wrong George in the White House: "George Kennedy would not have stolen the election, disregarded the threat posed by al Qaeda before September 11, outsourced the job of capturing bin Laden, barred his critics from reelection campaign appearances, nominated Harriet Meiers, stood by Alberto Gonzales, authorized illegal wiretaps, or brooked the outing of a CIA operative. George Kennedy would not have let New Orleans fall - and if it had, 'You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie' would have instead been, in classic disaster movie tradition, 'You knew and you didn't warn anybody!'" Related: Another fine rant from Phil Nugent.

The AV Club's latest list: "10 Directors You Didn't Know You Hated."

Online listening tip. The current edition of Start the Week. Engaging for all 40+ minutes, Andrew Marr's guests are John Gray, whose new book is Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, the great historian Eric Hobsbawm, whose new collection of essays is entitled Globalization, Democracy and Terrorism, Pat Barker, whose new novel is Life Class and Peter Sellars, who's taking the New Crowned Hope festival to the Barbican and tells the rip-roaring tale of Simone Weil.

Online viewing tip #1. Son or Daughter? Of Glen or Glenda?.

Online viewing tip #2. Tarantino's Mind. Via DK Holm at ScreenGrab.

Online viewing tip #3. A Fair(y) Use Tale.

Online viewing tips, round 1. TED Talks, via Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing.

Online viewing tips, round 2. Shorts by Chris Anthony Diaz.

Online viewing tips, round 3. Neat music tricks: "San Francisco musicians The Tatamimats occasionally perform Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety on ukulele," notes David Pescovitz at Boing Boing; Ed Champion's found some a cappella Daft Punk; Phil Hoad rounds up clips of movie stars as rock stars.

Posted by dwhudson at July 5, 2007 3:09 PM