Shorts, 11/27.

Opening a special issue of the International Journal of Zizek Studies devoted to "Zizek and Cinema," Todd McGowan lays out the many arguments that have been made against taking Slavoj Zizek seriously. "Given Zizek's lack of attention to the specificity of filmic texts and of the filmic medium, it is difficult to understand his prominence in the film studies world, a prominence especially pronounced among young film theorists." Then, the turn: "Zizek has sparked a renewed interest in Lacan and psychoanalysis in the world of film studies because his thought opens up possibilities within the interpretation of cinema that that would otherwise not exist. It does so through the particular focus that runs through all of Zizek's filmic analyses. Though Zizek does often ignore textual and medium specificity, what he doesn't ignore is the way that films organize and deploy the spectator's enjoyment." Via Bookforum.

The Golden Compass opens next week and, in the Boston Globe, Donna Freitas offers her take on what Catholics are really afraid of:

These books are deeply theological, and deeply Christian in their theology. The universe of His Dark Materials is permeated by a God in love with creation, who watches out for the meekest of all beings - the poor, the marginalized, and the lost. It is a God who yearns to be loved through our respect for the body, the earth, and through our lives in the here and now. This is a rejection of the more classical notion of a detached, transcendent God, but I am a Catholic theologian, and reading this fantasy trilogy enhanced my sense of the divine, of virtue, of the soul, of my faith in God.

The book's concept of God, in fact, is what makes [Philip] Pullman's work so threatening. His trilogy is not filled with attacks on Christianity, but with attacks on authorities who claim access to one true interpretation of a religion. Pullman's work is filled with the feminist and liberation strands of Catholic theology that have sustained my own faith, and which threaten the power structure of the church. Pullman's work is not anti-Christian, but anti-orthodox.

Via Brainiac Joshua Glenn. Related: Peter Chattaway in Christianity Today.

"Charlie Wilson's War is a very good-but-not-great political dramedy with a very solid and settled Tom Hanks, an agreeably arch and brittle Julia Roberts (in the finest sense of that term) and a brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman," writes Jeffrey Wells. More from David Poland: "It is a wonderful, misshaped, inspired, insipid mess of a good movie." And it "feels more schizophrenic than any [Mike] Nichols film I can recall." And Lou Lumenick asks, "Is it a coincidence that the fall's two most strenuously 'even-handed' war movies (and make no mistake, this is another war movie, no matter how entertaining) are released by Universal, whose corporate parent is a major war contractor?"

Nick Schager in Slant on Youth Without Youth: "Coppola so doggedly seeks to create a level of romantic/spiritual contemplativeness via formal experimentation that his reckless abandon - the plethora of repeated motifs, the oblique references, the deliberate artifice - does generate a modicum of intrigue and admiration. However, given his general failure to synthesize his ideas into either a compelling dramatic whole or an impressionistic conceptual treatise, the film principally stands as a great director's blast-off into crazy."

Also: "Oswald's Ghost only skims the surface of the short- and long-term social and political ramifications of JFK's death, and in the face of dueling conclusions - conspiracy buffs' staunch belief that Oswald didn't act alone, and others' conviction that he did - the film ultimately just shrugs its shoulders as if to say, 'Got me. You decide.'"

"I was dumped, flat broke, at a career low after watching my life fall apart in three months and working at a video store on New Year's Eve when I started to consider, In Search of a Midnight Kiss," writer-director Alex Holdridge tells Film Threat's Zack Haddad.

"Like [Wes] Anderson's typical heroes," suggests Evan Kindley at Not Coming to a Theater Near You, "the students in Godard's [La Chinoise] are both disciplined and listless at the same time: they do calisthenics to the rhythm of passages from the Communist Manifesto, then playfully grab each other's asses; they quiz each other about the fine points of dialectical materialism and shout down those of their number they consider 'revisionists'; they read aloud, always in that bored, sated way people read aloud in Godard movies; they do surprisingly little else.... And yet the kids are undoubtedly appealing - I don't think it's possible not to like Jean-Pierre Léaud - and their idealism and passion is in its way very moving."

"I have a confession to make: I don't much like Im Kwon-taek's films," admits Duncan Mitchel. "Oh, I respect them: the old man learned his trade doing hackwork, and worked his way up to arthouse fare and international fame.... Chang (aka Downfall) isn't one of Im's best-known films, but it's a good example of his virtues and his limitations." Also at Koreanfilm.org, Adam Hartzell: "D-War is more valuable as pedagogy for globalization than as entertainment."

Movie City News has ten questions for Roger Ebert.

"The buzz is that My Dream has the right stuff to earn an Academy Award." In the Los Angeles Times, John M Glionna tells the story behind the doc about the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe.

Writers' strike roundup:

• The strike "may have finally solidified [Nikki Finke's] position as a Hollywood power broker," reports Brain Stelter. For his New York Times piece, "more than a dozen executive producers, writers and agents offered to attest to her influence. But with those plaudits also come complaints - only anonymous ones - that Ms Finke plays favorites.... For many of her readers, Ms Finke's Web site has supplanted traditional media as a primary source of strike news. Before the strike, Ms Finke said Deadline Hollywood Daily averaged 350,000 page views a day. Since the beginning of the strike, she said the daily average had soared to about a million."

• Writers have kind of been having themselves a good time, to hear Brooks Barnes tell it, also in the NYT. What's more, they're winning on the PR front. Even Variety readers would agree, reports Cynthia Littleton, though her headline maintains: "WGA wins hearts; studios retain muscle."

• Online viewing tips. Scott Solary gathers links to the "Speechless" videos that've been posted so far at Deadline Hollywood Daily and points to Karina Longworth's take on the series at NewTeeVee.

At the House Next Door, Lauren Wissot finds I'm Not There to be "a beautiful wreck, one worth rubbernecking for." Related: The Shamus offers "20 Reasons to Be Stuck Inside a Multiplex with the Overpriced Popcorn Again." More from Ed Howard.

No Country for Old Men roundup: Alec Baldwin, Peter Chattaway, Edward Copeland, Glenn Kenny, Tasha Robinson and the Shamus.

In the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, Joanie Baker has a few fun stories about a local horror movie being made with a mere $25K. Thanks, Jerry!

"The most challenging and often the best-reviewed films of the autumn have all - almost without exception - done lousy business." Geoffrey Macnab looks into it for the Independent.

Online fiddling around tip. Dennis Cozzalio's word puzzle.

Online viewing tip #1. The trailer for In Bruges, the film that'll be opening Sundance. Via Coudal Partners.

Online viewing tip #2. Video from Ray Pride: "Diego Luna on Los Angeles Vs Mexico and politics in Mexican filmmaking."

Online viewing tips. Creative Review rounds up a selection of music videos.

Posted by dwhudson at November 27, 2007 8:53 AM