Fests and events, 7/18.

"Easily trouncing the recent Hollywood heat rash of over-extended superheroes and Hasbro infomercials, this summer's most satisfying sci-fi blockbuster is a crypto-Marxist, proto-Fascist spectacle first released 80 years ago: Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the legendary art deco futuro- fable of industrialist excess, proletarian rebellion, and robot romance, one of the last big-budget exhilarations of the pre-talkie era." Ed Halter celebrates another run, this one at Film Forum for a week starting Friday. Update: More from Vadim Rizov at the Reeler.

Also in the Voice, Carl Rollyson previews The Mistress and the Muse: The Films of Norman Mailer (July 22 through August 5) and wonders why Mailer turned to filmmaking in the first place. "One of Mailer's inspirations was surely John Cassavetes... Mailer wanted to create a stark black-and-white cinema verité/faux documentary that would blur the boundaries between fact and fiction - a harbinger of what he would produce in his nonfiction novels. But in Maidstone, the best of Mailer's filmmaking efforts, the results are, as Vincent Canby wrote in the Times at the time, a 'mixed bag,' veering from tedious to terrifying."

"[T]he number of films produced during Hollywood's first decades meant a few Jewish movies slipped onto the screen, if only for novelty's sake," notes Dennis Harvey in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "One is a 1925 feature called His People. This rediscovered gem is the centerpiece attraction of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's 27th annual program" and it's "a major exception to the silent era's ironic general avoidance of Jewish imagery beyond the occasional comic stereotype, scheming shopkeeper, or biblical flashback." Also, a few more tips for the festival that opens tomorrow and runs through July 26 in SF before traveling on to other Bay Area towns.

Michael Hawley has previewed 14 films in the lineup and writes at the Evening Class, "My favorite of the bunch by far is Oliver Hirschbiegel's Just an Ordinary Jew."

Toronto's added more titles, including David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, and Brian Brooks has got them at indieWIRE. More from Kurt at Twitch, where reviews from the Fantasia Festival are still coming in.

The Philadelphia Weekly offers a guide to the second week of the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

More from acquarello and the series Leading the Charge: Woodfall Film Productions and the Revolution in 60s British Cinema (through July 26): A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

"The [Dallas Video Festival] kicks off its 20th year in two weeks, and the just-released lineup represents the festival's rebellious, mixed media idealogy better than ever," notes David Lowery. July 31 through August 5.

Alleyball's the winner at the Independent Features Film Festival.

Posted by dwhudson at July 18, 2007 9:03 AM