Fests and events, 10/21.

"Through Nov 11 the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, is presenting a 33-title retrospective of [Andy Warhol's] work, including new prints of films like his 1966 sensation The Chelsea Girls; a sampling of the 472 Screen Tests he shot of Susan Sontag, Lou Reed and other fabulous scene-makers; and excerpts from early minimalist epics like the eight-hour Empire (1964) and the 5-hour 21-minute Sleep (1963). The museum will also present A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory, a documentary about a filmmaker who had been one of Warhol's intimates, and Beautiful Darling, a work in progress about Candy Darling, a notable figure in what the museum is calling Warhol's World," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "For film lovers there is no more important show in town."

For Gay City News, Ioannis Mookas presents 13 ways of approaching Warhol's films; via Keith Uhlich at the House Next Door.

"Now 70 and light years from the era when he and his New York University film school buddy Scorsese collaborated on Mean Streets, New York, New York and Raging Bull, [Mardik] Martin is not bitter seeing the great heights to which Scorsese has ascended in the intervening years," writes Robert W Welkos in the Los Angeles Times. Mardik: From Baghdad to Hollywood, a doc screening as part of the Hollywood Film Festival, "chronicles what the filmmakers note is Martin's unlikely journey from Iraq to NYU film school, from busboy to writing Raging Bull, from being the hottest writer in New York to losing it all in LA, and from forsaking his craft to becoming a favorite screenwriting teacher at USC."

The Chicago Reader has recommendations for what to catch during the Chicago International Children's Film Festival (through October 29); also, Andrea Gronvall on the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema (through October 28).

Doug Cummings catches the Academy's animation tribute. "I was particularly glad [critic Charles] Solomon highlighted the difference between the loving, handmade feel of all of the works in the program versus the kind of homogenous CGI work that increasingly defines the genre today, short form as well as long form." He's also checked out The Art of the Motion Picture Illustrator: William B Major, Harold Michelson and Tyrus Wong, on view through December 16.

The Observer's Jason Solomons has newsy bits from the London Film Festival, including one on a short that reunites Withnail and I's Richard E Grant and Paul McGann.

Posted by dwhudson at October 21, 2007 7:59 AM