Shorts, 9/6.

"Petter Naess' comedy Gone With the Woman is Norway's entry in the hunt for a nomination for best foreign film Academy Award," reports Gunnar Rehlin in Variety. Via Peter Martin at Cinematical, where he's got more linkage, but let's add this: Karsten Meinich's got background info on the film and the novel, pix, the works. And it'll be screening in Toronto.

"Gael García Bernal has agreed to star in Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's upcoming drama Mammoth," report Gunnar Rehlin and Ed Meza. Also in Variety, "Ralph Fiennes, Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper have joined Keira Knightley in the cast of Saul Dibb's The Duchess, which starts shooting Sept. 23 in London," reports Adam Dawtrey. Knightley will be playing Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

"Some films just lend themselves to hours of discussion after watching them," writes Tom Giammarco at Koreanfilm.org. "Films like David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, Vera Chytilova's Sedmikrasky or David Lynch's Eraserhead can continue to captivate you for hours or days after viewing while you try to sort through what you just saw. To this list, I would like to add [Kim Jeong-joong's] HERs."

"Something of a cross between the organic essentiality of Johan van der Keuken's ethnographic documentaries (most notably, in I Love Dollar) and the disenfranchised cinema of Pedro Costa, José Luis Guerín's En Construcción anticipates Jia Zhang-ke's Still Life in its understated, yet bracing portrait of economically imposed dislocation, class stratification, and cultural erasure," writes acquarello.

"If the sins of father are transferable to future generations, then Germany has a serious familial problem," writes Eric Kohn for the Reeler. "That's the driving tenet of The Unknown Soldier, Michael Verhoeven's provocative documentary centered on the ethical, social and psychological wrangles forced out of the country's subconscious between 1999 and 2004, when the controversial tour of the Wehrmach Exhibition confronted citizens with evidence that genocidal behavior during the Holocaust spread throughout the German army, rather than being restricted to the universally denounced inner realm of the SS."

"The portrait painted by Darkon is of low self-esteem and a consequent retreat into immature imagination, and its depiction of grown adults playing pretend is unavoidably funny," writes Nick Schager in Slant. "Yet to [Andrew] Neel and [Luke] Myers's credit, it's ultimately—as with a prolonged, YouTube-ready clip of Skip's young son vigorously swinging a sword in the family living room—the type of laughter that feels like it could quite easily turn to tears."

"Some wonder aloud why anyone would want to watch torture in a movie when there's enough of it in the real world, but such questioning reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of horror," argues Luke Y Thompson in the LA Weekly. "Horror movies allow us to confront our fears in a safe setting, and many of the best have reflected the biggest threats of their time.... Some day, parents will be decrying some new slasher movie by saying it isn't as worthy as the good old horror classics they remember, like Saw."

"In A Few Days in September she plays Irene, a tough-cookie French agent protecting an American colleague (Nick Nolte) from a CIA assassin (John Turturro)," writes Viv Groskop, introducing her interview with Juliette Binoche for the Telegraph. "This, however, is the French arthouse version of an action movie."

Ronald Bergan agrees with Ridley Scott: "Fings really ain't wot they used to be."

And in the Guardian:

• Kira Cochrane spots Nicole Kidman on the cover of Vanity Fair: "I think what I find so incredibly discomfiting about these pictures is their suggestion that, no matter how talented a woman is, how many plaudits she has received, how intelligent her reputation, how garlanded she has been for depicting one of the most talented writers of the last century while sporting a huge prosthetic conk on her noggin, at the end of the day, if she wants to stay in the public eye, if she wants the magazine covers and the leading roles, she has to be willing to reduce herself to tits and arse."

• Stephen Moss meets author Michelle Paver: "Ridley Scott has optioned the entire Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series and plans to do for the Mesolithic what he did for the Roman empire. Her publisher, Orion, which gave her an advance of £1.8m for the six books in 2003, will be hoping it has the next JK Rowling on its hands."

• Joe Queenan argues "that the new genre of romantic comedies are not really upbeat, coming-of-age motion pictures about young male schmucks who are saved by the love of a good woman, but heart-rending tragedies about beautiful young women who are doomed to spend the rest of their lives with juvenile, not especially good-looking dorks."

• Maddy Costa meets Stephen Mangan.

• And Ronald Bergan remembers Kerwin Mathews and George Gomori remembers Ivan Darvas.

At TNR Online, Simpsons writer Daniel Chun imagines a liberal 24. Via Bookforum.

"David Lynch has a lot to answer for," writes Erika Baldt for Identity Theory. "Too many directors assume that by using blue light, white noise, and incomprehensible plot twists, their film will become the next Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Unfortunately, Jean-Claude Brisseau is just such a director, and Exterminating Angels (Les Anges Exterminateurs) is a derivative melding of Mulholland Drive and sex, lies, and videotape.... On the other hand there is L'Iceberg: a similar premise, a vastly different execution."

"If there is some clever film booker at a revival theater somewhere, that person might want to consider a double feature of Lights in the Dusk with Sam Fuller's Underworld USA," suggests Peter Nellhaus.

Nick Schager at Slant: "With The Brothers Solomon, Will Arnett continues to squander the goodwill he engendered as Gob on Arrested Development; SNL's Will Forte, without an estimable reputation to sully in the first place, merely reestablishes that he's not funny."

"'How good do we have it?' is an attempt to start a conversation between different film communities," announces Andy Horbal as he launches a new project. "It's founded on the idea that if people had a better idea of what's possible, they'd be more likely to get involved in organizing film events in their home towns." In his first installment, he talks with Louisville-based film critic Alan Abbott.

"For much of the 1990s, it seemed as if Berlin's film studios at Babelsberg would never return to the glory days of Dietrich and Garbo," writes Allison Connolly for Spiegel Online. "But this year, the site is hosting a number of major productions. The stars are back."

"Finnish filmmakers are taking strike action over what they claim is the government's 'broken promise' over raising subsidies for movie production," reports the BBC.

"4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Cristian Mungiu's winner of both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Golden Palm in Cannes 2007, was chosen the Best Film of the Year in the poll for FIPRESCI's Grand Prix." The award will be presented during the September 20 opening ceremony of the San Sebastian Film Festival. Neil Young has more.

Two poems by Angela Hibbs in nthposition: "Cindy Sherman" and "Tracey Emin."

Miranda July sends a playlist to Dwight Garner.

Online listening tip. Michael Palin is a guest on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Online viewing tip. "The Shamus had never seen this Ernst Lubitsch directed and written short, part of the omnibus film If I Had A Million. It's full of the glorious Lubitsch touches, especially his famous use of doors as comedy shorthand. And Laughton's 'punchline' is a beaut."

Posted by dwhudson at September 6, 2007 2:32 PM