November 14, 2007

Shorts, 11/14.

The Elephant and the Sea At the House Next Door, Andrew Chan offers a bit of background on the Malaysian "New Wave" and reviews of "three new movies set and shot in Malaysia, all of which were directed by ethnic Chinese filmmakers": Patrick Tam's After This Our Exile, Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone and Woo Ming Jin's The Elephant and the Sea.

Along with Hoop Dreams and Murderball, Darkon is "one of the great documentary dissections of how Americans play," argues Grady Hendrix at Slate. "So what happened in Darkon when the adventure was over and the moviemakers went home? It all depends on whom you ask."

Twitch's Todd Brown has news of Christopher Doyle's second directorial effort, Warsaw Dark.

Peter Chattaway points to director Chris Weitz's furious response to Hana Rosin's "hatchet-job" in the Atlantic "on my film of Philip Pullman's novel The Golden Compass (and by extension, me)." Plus, a few ideas as to "why the Christian community that was so accommodating to The Da Vinci Code (2006) has suddenly turned against The Golden Compass."

Parents "Icelandic filmmaker Ragnar Bragason won six major Edda awards (Iceland's top film honors) for his film Parents and another two for his television drama The Nightshift at the 9th Icelandic Film and Television Awards ceremony held last Sunday," reports Annika Pham at Cineuropa.

Up-n-coming:

For years now, awards season has been even more irritating than Christmas, but for the past couple of weeks, the Los Angeles Times has been pretending that we're in the thick of the Oscar race; every couple of days, its pages are flooded back stories and profiles, none daring a critical word, but if you can take the puff, you may be interested in a few:

A No Country for Old Men roundup:

No Country for Old Men

  • David Lowery describes how the beginning hit him, then: "The rest of the movie, God's honest truth, I could take or leave, and since I've still got the book sitting on the shelf I'm likely to leave it. But that beginning, and especially that ending - they're going to stick."

  • "[T]he strengths of No Country, and the filmmaking, are as complete as they are precedented," writes Mark Asch in the L Magazine. "The true, blood-simple value of this efficient, classical thriller may come into much sharper focus if a certain rumored production ever thunders into town: an adaptation of McCarthy's westward opus Blood Meridian, under the direction of Ridley Scott."

  • The Coen Brothers "create occasions where mundane world and movie world intersect to our shivery satisfaction," writes Richard T Jameson at MSN.

In the Guardian, Feargus O'Sullivan, author of Pulp Kitchen, offers a survey of food in the movies.

ST VanAirsdale reviews four holiday preview packages that, together, comprise an "inspired, libidinous orgy of hype, supposition and bullshit that could have your eyes rolling until they cramp." Sean Burns's got a good one, though, in the Philadelphia Weekly.

It's not much of a surprise that year-end best-of lists aimed at shoppers would start appearing about now. Amazon posts its "Best Books of 2007" spread.

Online listening tip. The BBC's Andrew Collins on the rockumentary. From Jerry Lentz, who notes that guests include DA Pennebaker, Albert Maysles, Susan Steinberg, Julien Temple, Ondi Timoner, Bob Smeaton and Joe Berlinger.

Online viewing tip. Faisal A Qureshi finds Alex Cox introducing Moviedrome.

Online viewing tips. From Anne Thompson: "Anyone who likes old movies and freebies might want to check out Amazon Unbox's Free Classic Movie Week (ends Nov 18). They're all digital downloads, most for rent, a few to own, all for free."



Bookmark and Share

Posted by dwhudson at November 14, 2007 8:17 AM