Shorts, 10/30.

JC Gabel and James Hughes introduce an interview for Stop Smiling: "In June, filmmaker Thom Andersen opened the doors of his home - a Schindler house tucked in the hills of Silver Lake - and spoke eloquently, if not mordantly, about the city he's been chronicling for decades (see [Sam Sweet's] piece for more on his authoritative 2003 documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself). Looming beyond the windows of the kitchen where Andersen quietly sat, pinpointing his replies to each question, was a clear view of the famed Hollywood sign, the seemingly eternal landmark that takes on a new shape after sustained exposure to Andersen's forensic analysis of the movie business and its endless byproducts."

"Heath Ledger and Sean Penn are in talks to star in Tree of Life, with River Road Entertainment finally bringing writer-director Terrence Malick's long-gestating drama to life." Gregg Goldstein has more in the Hollywood Reporter. Via Christopher Campbell at Cinematical. Related: Sarah Manvel at kamera on The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic Visions of America.

The New York Observer's Gillian Reagan points to Leslie Simmons's HR item on Rebecca Miller's adaptation of her own novel, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, starring Robin Wright Penn, Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder. Related: Chris Stangl wishes Ryder a happy birthday.

Shawn Levy has a friend who's seen a very rough cut of Pixar's Wall-E.

A "cache of theater-related photographs, scrapbooks, journals, scripts and more" related to Katharine Hepburn's stage career being donated to the New York Public Library "offer a revealing glance at her personality, profession and obsessions," reports Patricia Cohen in the New York Times.

"In Naked Spaces: Living Is Round, Trinh T Minh-ha expounds on the themes of postcolonial identification and the geopolitical (and social) apparatus of disempowerment in Reassemblage to create dense, thoughtful, and articulate ethnographic essay film on indigenous identity, the impossibility of translation, and architecture as cultural representation," writes acquarello.

Hollywood's writers may well be on strike starting Thursday. "While a spate of not-so-good movies is likely to emerge from the 2007/2008 strike-film bubble, a boom in original scripts will only be good for the movie industry," blogs Anne Thompson. "But many people will lose money in the meantime. The cost of the five-month 1988 writers strike was some $500 million."

If the Cheney administration really is cooking up an attack on Iran, its "Hollywood Revenge" is going to be a harder sell in the UK than in the US, argues the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw.

Also: Christopher Hawtree remembers screenwriter Marc Behm and Eric Shorter remembers Moira Lister, "an elegant, intelligent and funny actor who enchanted connoisseurs of postwar comedy on stage, screen and television."

Every evening next month, a different celeb programmer will be presenting a film on TCM. Robert Cashill has the match-ups.

Shirley MacLaine fills out Vanity Fair's questionnaire.

Stylus Magazine lists the "Top Films of the Millennium." So far, of course. Via Jason Morehead.

Not film-related, but still: Elatia Harris interviews BibliOdyssey's Paul K for 3 quarks daily. Via wood s lot.

Posted by dwhudson at October 30, 2007 4:04 PM