Shorts, 12/31.

"After globetrotting through England and Spain for his recent films, Woody Allen says he's returning to familiar terrain," writes Steven Zeitchik. "The director, whom Risky Biz caught up with last week at the premiere for his Cassandra's Dream, let slip that he will shoot his next project in the Big Apple."

"Following on the success of Paris, Je T'Aime, the powers that be have opted to repeat their formula of love stories set in famous cities, this time anthologizing stories set in New York in a collection titled, surprisingly enough, New York, I Love You," notes Todd Brown at Twitch. Among the directors on board: Park Chan-wook and Fatih Akin. Todd's got more names.

Sacha Baron Cohen will play Abbie Hoffman in Steven Spielberg's The Trial of the Chicago 7, notes Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.

The AP is reporting that Tom Hanks will soon begin shooting Comrade Rockstar, a biopic of Dean Reed, the "Red Elvis," in Berlin.

Journey "will see [Daniel] Radcliffe play Dan Eldon, a 22-year-old who was among four journalists stoned to death by a mob in Mogadishu in July 1993," reports David Smith. "His mother, Kathy, says that she has rejected numerous bids for film rights to the story, and met but turned down leading actors including Orlando Bloom, Heath Ledger, Ryan Phillippe and Joaquin Phoenix, all of whom were eager to play the part. But then she sat down with 18-year-old Radcliffe and his parents at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles." Radcliffe "has a puckishness, sense of humour and energy inside him which remind me of Dan," she says.

Also in the Guardian: "The Lady Vanishes is one of the least analysed pictures in the Hitchcock canon; critics have always preferred to pick over the railway-bookstand Freudianism of his American films," writes Matthew Sweet in a piece centering on Charters and Caldicott, "the men who hold the key to the mystery of the title - and yet refuse to yield it and save the heroine.... And while swastikas flying over Whitehall were a real and frightening possibility, it's easy to understand why these two characters became so attractive to audiences sitting in the dark of the Essoldo, dreaming of peace - dreaming of living in a country fit for fools like Charters and Caldicott."

"At Dennis Cooper's blog, the novelist has posted a long and detailed 'oral history' of the cult actress Tuesday Weld," notes DK Holm at the Vancouver Voice. "Perhaps the most interesting revelation of the oral history is the comment on Miss Weld's hidden life as a Satanist."

"There would seem to be an enormous distance between the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where the central events in Taxi to the Dark Side take place, and Enron's headquarters in Houston, where the machinations of white-collar criminals brought down the giant energy company and became the backdrop for [Alex] Gibney's entertaining 2005 documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," writes Adam Liptak in the New York Times. "But Mr Gibney said the two projects have common themes. 'The subject of corruption unites my films,' he said. 'Enron was about economic corruption, and Taxi is about the corruption of the rule of law.'"

In Taschen's Cinema Now, "Andrew Bailey takes us on a guided, visually-articulated tour through today's world cinema. Along with his directorial profiles and capsule reviews of their respective films, the volume includes a DVD with such extras as trailers, music videos and short films by Alexander Payne and Carlos Reygadas." And Michael Guillén talks with him.

In the New York Review of Books, Ian Buruma calls for a fresh translation of Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz. Meantime, "Those who are not blessed with the good fortune to be able to read the novel in German can still enjoy Fassbinder's great film." Buruma speculates as to what Döblin may or may not have owed Joyce and what Fassbinder may or may not have owed Douglas Sirk and Max Beckmann.

For the New Yorker, Lillian Ross meets James Thiérrée, grandson of Charlie Chaplin, to talk about his latest show, Au Revoir Parapluie.

52 Pick-Up is not exactly a good movie," writes Vince Keenan. "It's an enjoyably unpretentious one. It's mean and it plays dirty. It's trashy and it knows it. And sometimes that's exactly what you're in the mood for."

In the Los Angeles Times, Chris Lee explains the "Sweding" campaign for Be Kind Rewind.

James Robinson profiles Ang Lee for the Observer, where Barbara Ellen talks with Laura Linney.

Online grinning tip. "Proving once again the centrality of James Bond to contemporary British identity, the Royal Mail releases these stamps on January 8th, 2008, the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming's birth," notes John Coulthart.

Posted by dwhudson at December 31, 2007 7:29 AM