Shorts, 10/18.

"We've Got Dave Eggers's and Spike Jonze's Script for Where the Wild Things Are," announces New York, "... and it's really, really good." Via Ted Z.

Wiley Wiggins is "headed to San Francisco to start rehearsals for Sorry, Thanks - Directed by Dia Sokol. The only other actor I know for sure that has been cast is Andrew Bujalski, who plays my buddy."

Ardvark has amazing news at Twitch: Hearts of Darkness, one of the best making-of's ever, will finally be out on DVD in November. Related: The Guardian's Dan Glaister is one of many passing along news of Francis Ford Coppola's comments in a recent GQ interview regarding Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Robert de Niro.

In the Los Angeles Times, Claudia Eller tells the story of American Gangster's "long road to the silver screen."

"Chuck Griffith was a good friend and the funniest, fastest and most inventive writer I ever worked with." A remembrance by Roger Corman in the LA Weekly.

"Funny Games is a cheat - subverting its own well-established terms for the sake of its director's gratification." And ST VanAirsdale has told Michael Haneke, too. If you haven't seen the film, don't click if you're not in the mood for spoilers. Related, and via Movie City News: Dave Calhoun's interview with Haneke for Time Out. Also at the Reeler, through, a talk with Chris Eigeman about Turn the River.

"Michelle Johnson is a good egg, a good filmmaker and a good interview." At the Siffblog, E Steven Fried talks with her about The Best of Lezsploitation.

Ladrón que roba a ladrón, displaying "wit, intelligence, charm and quite a bit of heart," may be "'small' by Hollywood standards, but it has certainly struck a chord with the immigrant and Spanish-speaking population, who during the first week of release in September gave it the distinction of being not just the second highest grossing film, per screen average, in the country, but also the highest grossing Spanish-language film produced in the United States," notes Ramón Valle, who also talks with screenwriter JoJo Henderson for the WSWS.

Tyler Perry " is one of the most successful actor-director-producer-writer hyphenates today, but there remains a shocking disconnect between his work and the mainstream media," writes Armond White. "Most critics don't 'get' Tyler Perry basically because most critics are whites who are not only clueless about Perry's African-American culture, but unsympathetic to his particular expression." Also in the New York Press: Eric Kohn talks with Mike Mills about Does Your Soul Have A Cold?.

"It's not easy to turn one of the most controversial events of the 20th century into a movie that makes your eyes roll, but O Jerusalem does this and worse," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "Shaping the founding of the State of Israel into a middle school history lesson — complete with textbook dialogue and strained neutrality — Elie Chouraqui's clunking film would much rather bore than offend." Adds Ella Taylor in the Voice: "Though no one actually breaks into song, the cheesy battle scenes and even cheesier romantic backstory will have you waiting in vain for a musical." More from Nick Schager in Slant.

Also in the Voice, Aaron Hillis on The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell: "A couple of chuckles actually stick, but for post-apocalyptic anarchy and thrills, you're better off renting Six String Samurai or a Mad Max flick."

"Like a joint that waits to kick in until after Dumbo's pink elephant dream sequence has already unraveled, Weirdsville's pleasures come too little too late," writes Rob Humanick.

Also at Slant: "Any film that slams Gandhi as something of a selfish, thoughtless prick deserves credit for audaciousness," writes Nick Schager. "Regrettably, though, Gandhi, My Father weakly opts for lionization at precisely the moment it should go in for the killshot."

And Eric Henderson on Lagerfeld Confidential: "Lagerfeld's unwillingness to open up and [director Rodolphe] Marconi's skittishness about invoking his wrath result in a perfect storm of dull."

For Spiegel Online, Marc Pitzke talks with Alex Gibney about Taxi to the Dark Side.

"For filmmaker Tim Kirkman, a gay man who grew up harboring both love and an element of loathing for [North Carolina], the catharsis came only with perspective - 'I didn't know my home state until I left,' he says - and in making his debut film, the 1998 documentary Dear Jesse, which is now being released to DVD." Neil Morris talks with him. Also in the Independent Weekly, Godfrey Cheshire reviews Into the Wild.

Jon Henley interviews Emmanuelle Béart for the Guardian.

Shelley Leopold talks with Anton Corbijn. Also in the LA Weekly: "Though he sometimes stumbles in navigating his feature debut's admittedly conventional narrative, Control gets closer to approximating music's emotional essence than its more literal rock-bio counterparts," writes Tim Grierson. "By not wasting time convincing us of [Ian] Curtis's tortured genius - or even worrying that such a debate is relevant - the movie is free to become the cinematic equivalent of Joy Division songs: melancholy but vibrant, bleak but never unbearable." And Siran Babyan: "Curtis's afterlife seems like it's been one big after-party."

At Cinematical, Jeffrey M Anderson talks with Tony Gilroy about Michael Clayton. Related: "Reading this thread on Hollywood Elsewhere responding to Kim Masters's Slate story on George Clooney and the boxoffice fate of Michael Clayton depressed me," blogs Anne Thompson.

Shaun Brady has a quick talk with Werner Herzog and another with Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman in the Philadelphia City Paper. More from Capone at AICN. Related: Dan Sallitt: "While watching Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (which I liked a lot), it occurred to me that there's a kind of dialectic working in Anderson's style."

At Slate, Rebecca Onion reviews Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea, "a movie about the environment that isn't content with the good-bad dynamic of your average gloomy enviropic."

Craig Phillips reviews JJ Murphy's Me and You and Memento and Fargo: How Independent Screenplays Work, "a most useful approach to writers and filmmakers (often the same person, it should be noted, commonly a major difference between Hollywood films and independents) who broke the mold, the Syd Field model of the standard script paradigm, to bring their unique voices and visions to the screen via the written word."

At PopMatters, Matt Mazur salutes Paul Newman in The Hustler and The Verdict.

Tarantino loves women? Glenn Kenny "can see it, sorta."

"A record 63 countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category." At indieWIRE, Peter Knegt reports on one Oscar race that's off and running. And of course, he's got the list.

"Apparently, early autumn, rather than the holiday season, has become the preferred time to release the the films that make Hollywood feel good about itself," notes Ross Douthat at the Atlantic.

"Six Best Food Movies Ever"? John Mariani's got a list at Esquire.

Offline OMG! tip. BibliOdyssey. The book.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Lunches with David Poland.

Online viewing tips, round 2. Cosmosfilm.tv's video for Lyapis Trubetskoy's 'Capital' at the DVblog. Also: László Moholy-Nagy.

Posted by dwhudson at October 18, 2007 3:53 PM