Shorts, 10/14.

Glenn Kenny comments on the "Chicks behind the flicks" roundtable held at Salon in the wake of the brouhaha sparked by Nikki Finke's reporting that Warner Bros has issued a decree: "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." Sitting round the table are producer Lynda Obst (moderating), screenwriter and director Nora Ephron, writer and producer Laura Ziskin, screenwriter and director Callie Khouri, writer and director Patty Jenkins, producer Cathy Konrad, writer, director and producer Kimberly Peirce, writer and producer Andrea Berloff, writer and producer Margaret Nagle and Universal president Donna Langley:

Naturally, the words "meaning" and "art" don't occur here with nearly the frequency as do the words "career" and "ambition." Which is why none of these specimens, who we are to believe are so very passionate, ever feel compelled to pack up the high-end lifestyle aspirations and go make films the way, say, Kelly Reichardt does. And is also why if Catherine Breillat or Claire Denis or Chantal Akerman or Liv Ullmann had been in the room with these bozos, they would have laughed in their faces.

FW Murnau's long lost 4 Devils may - or may not - have turned up. DK Holm has details at the Vancouver Voice.

In the Independent, Geoffrey Macnab, who'll be having a book on Ingmar Bergman coming out next year, sorts through the director's unpublished letters and finds that, particularly in the 60s, Hollywood came courting quite often and earnestly.

"In the 30 years since Abigail's Party was first shown on television, the drama has taken on a life of its own," writes Amy Raphael. "Richard Eyre, the film and theatre director who is a contemporary of Leigh's, says it has reached classic status. 'Abigail's Party has become adjectival. You can describe an event as being "Abigail's Party." Which, of course, means that Mike [Leigh]'s work has acquired the status of a playwright such as Pinter.'"

Also in the Observer:

• Michael Caine and William Orbit do lunch and talk music.

• Viv Groskop talks with the trio behind Once. Director John Carney's turned down all sorts of offers to go Hollywood: "Instead he is filming Zonad, a 'very silly comedy', outside Dublin with his brother Kieran. It is a Mel Brooks spoof about a prison escapee who persuades an entire Irish village that he is a visitor from outer space. This seems strangely apt: Carney is a Catweazle type with a reddish, wispy beard and an unwashed smell."

• Mark Kermode recommends Tell No One, an "excellent French generic hybrid which deftly cross-pollinates fanciful murder-mystery thrills with intensely believable emotional spills."

"The chief criticism of the new experimental documentary Kurt Cobain: About a Son, advanced by Manohla Dargis in the New York Times and furthered by clever bloggers everywhere, is that were he alive, Kurt Cobain would hate it," writes Sean Nelson in the Stranger. "This projection isn't relevant - since he's not alive - nor particularly damning, because, frankly, who cares?... This is probably the ultimate reason that About a Son is the only way to do a film about Kurt Cobain, who was, for all important reasons, the last rock star: There's no thesis, no exegesis, no attempts to put him in a frame he didn't choose. It's just: Here he is, his words, his version - unfiltered, unmitigated, unmagnified even by his own blinding beauty."

Boyd van Hoeij at european-films.net:

• "After exploring the drab, working-class environment of a Walloon industrial town in his feature debut Miss Montigny, Belgian director Miel Van Hoogenbemt looks at the brighter side of life in his second feature Man zkt vrouw (A Perfect Match), a Dutch-language treat that suggests that life in Flanders is both wackier and more loveable than in Wallonia - at least, based on these two films."

• Also: "The extreme highs and lows of a Finnish child growing up in 1980s Sweden are explored with both spunk and compassion in Nanna Huolman's Kid Svensk (That Special Summer)."

• And: Elle s'appelle Sabine (Her Name is Sabine) is actress Sandrine Bonnaire's documentary focussing on her autistic younger sister: "The rage of the director can be felt in each frame and clearly shapes the pamphlet-like narrative, though the film is still a compelling examination of autism and the way the outside world tries - and, more often, fails - to deal with it."

"Even before it hit theaters, Elite Squad [Tropa de Elite] has already on its way to becoming one of Brazil's biggest movies. A pirated DVD version was seen by nearly 11.5 million people," reports Alexei Barrionuevo. "Residents of the Vila Cruzeiro slum here, one of the more violent in Rio, say they have been under siege for the past month from the black-clad, beret-wearing State Police Special Operations Battalion, better known as BOPE by Brazilians. Battalion members ride in on heavy armored vehicles bearing the force's symbol, a skull and crossed pistols, or on foot, moving with frightening, catlike speed and efficiency."

Also in the New York Times:

• There are still a couple of weeks to go before Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, Jonathan Demme's record of the Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid book tour hits theaters, but Carter himself is already on tour - promoting the next book, Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease and Building Hope. Patricia Cohen reports.

• "Landlocked between the world's two most populous countries — India and China — Bhutan has aggressively preserved its cultural identity by insulating itself. Three decades ago the fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, coined the phrase Gross National Happiness, which sought to measure prosperity through well being rather than consumption." And now, following the introduction of television in 1999 and the Internet shortly thereafter, the country's got a modest but growing film industry, too. A report from Anupama Chopra.

• Stephen Holden on Bhool Bhulaiya, "a lavish comic epic about psychiatry, mythology and spiritualism." Also: "Canvas, Joseph Greco's drama about schizophrenia, is obviously a labor of love."

• "Directed and written by Peter Brosens, an anthropologist and documentarian, and Jessica Woodworth, a former journalist, Khadak is a trippy spectacle," writes Matt Zoller Seitz. "It boldly tries to find visuals to describe complex metaphysical and political concepts. But the results often suggest aestheticized eye candy, along the lines of Ken Russell's Altered States or Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi and its sequels." Related: indieWIRE interviews Woodworth. Also, King Corn "is a gentle, meandering entry in the Truth-Seeking Comic Hero genre, as practiced by Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock." Related: At the Reeler, Cathy Erway talks with the film's makers.

• Celia McGee offers a sneak peek at How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, a comedy starring Simon Pegg based on Toby Young's rambunctious days at Vanity Fair.

• Why Did I Get Married? is "a buppie ensemble piece featuring [Tyler] Perry at his most restrained and mainstream-accessible," writes Jeannette Catsoulis. "More than anything, a Tyler Perry movie is an interactive experience... At the screening I attended, it was often difficult to hear the dialogue between bouts of enthusiastic applause and shouts of 'You go, girl!' This reflected pleasure is crucial to understanding Mr Perry's appeal; it's also extremely seductive. If you can make it through a viewing without at least one outburst of 'Right on!,' then you're a better woman than I am." Also, Naked Boys Singing!: "Alternately campy and coy, smirky and serious, the 16 original songs (newly arranged by Troy Christian) celebrate the male anatomy - and the gay lifestyle - with playful wit and unabashed explicitness." More on both movies at Slant from, respectively, Ed Gonzalez and Paul Schrodt.

• "A fascinating blend of musical, melodrama and feminist fairy tale, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag shows Bollywood's moral universe in transition," writes Rachel Saltz. More from Abhishek Bandekar at Hollywood Bitchslap.

• Stephen Colbert hints at a potential run for the White House.

• "[A]n entertainment industry that was supposed to be fretting over next-wave technology finds itself on the verge of a shutdown over issues that have mostly been off the bargaining table since home video came on clunky cassettes and the movie mogul Lew Wasserman was brokering labor deals." Michael Cieply explains.

"More than an exposition on abortion, Lake of Fire feels like seminal document in the American culture wars," writes Carina Chocano. Also in the Los Angeles Times: "There is really no anticipating the way Summer '04's complex relationships will play out," writes Kenneth Turan. "Director [Stefan] Krohmer creates a fine sense of erotic tension, and actress [Martina] Gedeck provides more than enough emotional resonance. This is one tricky film, but it stays with you nevertheless."

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir talks with Valerie Harper about Golda's Balcony - and of course, the character she'll always be associated with.

At the Reeler the other day, ST VanAirsdale: "The best read of the day is probably over at the New York Press, where Eric Kohn cornered David Cronenberg into a candid exchange about the nature of selling out... and his conception of Jewishness - which evidently includes distance from Israel and a fondness for Jewish Eskimos." Speaking of Cronenberg, Time Out's Dave Calhoun introduces a list: "When it was first announced in August that Eastern Promises would open the London Film Festival, Cronenberg declared that London is the 'home of so many of my most potent film influences.' With that in mind, we asked him to share a few of those influences with us."

"Ask anyone in the street to name five American black actors and they can do it; but ask them to name five British counterparts and they will be stuck," writes David Harewood. "That is not because the talent does not exist, but because we just don't get that exposure here." Also in the Guardian, Harriet Lane interviews Michelle Pfeiffer.

Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay points to a healthy laugh at the Onion, "Independent Film Made By Dependent 27-Year-Old," noting, "Some of the funnier (and more painful) bits occur later in the piece."

Steve Appleford talks with John Waters for the LA CityBeat.

Online viewing tip. Mel Blanc with David Letterman in 1981 at Drawn!

Posted by dwhudson at October 14, 2007 11:56 AM