Weekend shorts.

"Rereading The Dark Page, I hear Sam [Fuller]'s voice, very clearly, as if he was talking to me, intense, excited, passionate, honest," writes Wim Wenders. "I never met anybody else who would actually talk the same way he would write, let alone anybody who would also make movies with that very same impetus and attitude. For most authors, these are very different waters to swim in, talking, writing, or directing. For Sam it was just one and the same element: storytelling."

Also in the Guardian, Michelle Pauli talks with Neil Gaiman; Ewen MacAskill reports on how some of "the world's best-known atheists" were duped into appearing in a pro-creationist doc; Damon Wise talks with John Waters; and a slasher quiz.

"As America's involvement in World War II unfolds on TVs across the country in Ken Burns's latest mega-doc, The War, Facets looks at the experience as depicted in non-American cinema." That's quite a list.

Somewhat related, and via Movie City News, the Economist on Andrzej Wajda's Katyn: "[F]or all its passion and authenticity, the film is disappointingly muddled, and too narrowly focussed on a Polish audience.... What is really needed is a film with the broad sweep of Schindler's List that will explain the full horror of Soviet dictatorship both during and after the war."

"The gang's all here, as are their usual concerns, explored with all the self-conscious, self-censoring agony of youth in the post-slacker age," writes Carina Chocano. "The young strivers in Hannah Takes the Stairs have nothing in common with the depictions of young urban bohemia that come out of Hollywood, and as an emotional snapshot of a narrow demographic during a brief life phase, it's really quite evocative." At the same time, "For a movie so vested in youthful verisimilitude, it's conspicuously lacking in misery."

Also in the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan: "Enthusiastically received at Sundance, Great World of Sound is an intriguing look at our obsession with being successful and famous, at the deals we make that we fool ourselves aren't really with the devil." And: "When people think about World War II, wondering what it meant for the fate of museum-quality art is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet as the documentary The Rape of Europa demonstrates, this is a surprisingly vast and involving topic.... It also tells a series of wonderful stories, many of which are fascinating enough to inspire movies of their own."

"What good is geopolitical turmoil if you can't have some fun with it?" teases AO Scott. "The Kingdom takes the breathless visual precision of the Jason Bourne movies - what the film scholar David Bordwell calls 'intensive continuity' - out of the abstract hall-of-mirrors universe of intra-CIA skulduggery and into a semiplausible world of international tension. Rather than explore that tension, as some other, more ostentatiously serious movies coming out shortly seem poised to do, [director Peter] Berg and Matthew Michael Carnahan, the screenwriter, do what they can to relieve it with fireballs and frantic chases. The result is a slick, brutishly effective genre movie: Syriana for dummies." And you can watch 3½-minute review.

More from Chris Barsanti (Film Journal International), Steven Boone (House Next Door), Bill Gibron (), Rob Humanick (Projection Booth), Leo Goldsmith (Reverse Shot), Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle), James Rocchi (Cinematical), Kenneth Turan (Los Angeles Times) and Scott Tobias (AV Club). And then there are the earlier reviews.

Back to the New York Times:

• "Outsourced, in which a Seattle call center manager named Todd (Josh Hamilton) is fired and then dispatched to India as a consultant to train his own replacement, is a wonderful surprise," announces Matt Zoller Seitz. "[T]he filmmakers treat Todd's story as a springboard for a smart look at the effect of cultural difference on work, friendship and love, and the global economy's impact on national and personal identity." More from Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Outsourced is not a great movie, and maybe couldn't be this charming if it was."

• And more from MZS: "There's nothing surprising about The Game Plan, in which a quarterback named Joe Kingman, played by Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, learns to love the young daughter, Peyton (Madison Pettis), he never knew he had."

• "A campus comedy with a dirty mouth, an innocent heart and a surprisingly wise mind, Freshman Orientation uses identity politics as a road to romance and emotional maturity," writes Jeannette Catsoulis. "The naked breasts are a bonus."

In the Independent, James Anthony Pearson looks back on the experience of playing Bernard Sumner in Control, Al Jolson biographer Michael Freedland revisits the impact of sound on the movies and Andrew Gumbel considers the durability of the Western.

At european-films.net, Boyd van Hoeij has news of nominations for the European Film Academy's nominations for the Discovery Award (for best first feature) and of another honor for Andrzej Jakimowski's Sztuczki (Tricks).

"To his enormous credit, [Andrew] Dominik has thrown caution to the wind - stylistically, narratively, and thematically - in order to lay bare whatever simple truths more than a century of myth-making have obscured," writes Wade Major, reviewing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for the LA CityBeat. "From a professional standpoint, that's the kind of high-wire act that can make or break a career. Whether Dominik's film becomes Days of Heaven or Heaven's Gate, only time will tell. But there should be no doubting the achievement of bringing a film of this magnitude and vision to fruition, especially from within a studio framework."

"[W]hen it comes to Matthew Barney, knowing what it's about isn't really what it's about," writes Ryan Gilbey in the New Statesman. "Drawing Restraint 9 showcases a more serene Barney than was evident in the Cremaster series, although the new film has that same sense of epic space."

At the AV Club, Kyle Ryan reviews Leslie Mann's career - with Leslie Mann.

Lars-Olav Beier and Matthias Matussek's interview with Fatih Akin for Der Spiegel was good for several German wire stories, as I noted earlier. Now Spiegel Online's translated it.

As Britain braces for As You Like It, Sleuth and The Magic Flute, Jasper Rees profiles Kenneth Branagh; Ed Potton talks with Jon Voight about Deliverance; and the London Times critics select their favorite scenes. That's it, just scenes, any movie, ever.

Will Lawrence talks with Ben Stiller about The Heartbreak Kid for the Telegraph.

"Francis Ford Coppola has appealed for the return of his computer backup device following a robbery at his studio in Argentina on Wednesday," reports the BBC. "He told Argentine broadcaster Todo Noticias he had lost 15 years' worth of data, including writing and photographs of his family."

Edward Copeland's posted a list of upcoming Blog-a-Thons.

Online viewing tip. "A lot of my work is like frustrated filmmaking." Joni Mitchell talks about her new album, Shine. Via Will Layman, who writes at PopMatters, "Returning to past glories is not an option for a legend. Better to move forward on your own terms, as Joni has. Better to risk being too serious or risk reaching too far. May she keep it up for as long as her voice will carry her."

Posted by dwhudson at September 29, 2007 7:30 AM