Shorts, 2/2.

"Claire Danes has joined the cast of Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, an adaptation of the period coming-of-age novel by Robert Kaplow," reports Stuart Kemp for Reuters.

More from Adam Dawtry in Variety, where Michael Fleming reports that Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland) will direct Bobby Fischer Goes to War once he completes State of Play.

"RKO has announced that they're setting up a production company to remake eight classic, Val Lewton-produced thriller/horror films over the course of the next two years." Karina Longworth has details and comments.

Odienator nabs Big Media Vandalism from Steven Boone - at least for the duration of "Black History Mumf!"

Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections "takes a sprawling issue - the hazards of vote fraud and paperless, unverified electronic voting - and gives it the punch of a conspiracy thriller, using livid examples and sharp production values to portray a clear and present danger to democracy." The Nashville Scene's Jim Ridley meets its maker, David Earnhardt.

"Jia Zhangke's excellent Still Life has received a lot of appreciative and thoughtful commentary since it opened at the IFC Center on January 18," writes Dan Sallitt. "I have just a few thoughts to add to the ongoing discourse."

"Either there has been a terrible outbreak of inflation in critical praise, or we are living through a remarkable era of cinema," writes Mark Lawson. "What's noteworthy about the current golden age of cinema - which, when the histories are written, will surely rank with the 40s and the 70s as one of the three key periods - is that everyone is around to see it."

Also in the Guardian:

• Gordon Coates meets a batch of dedicated film collectors: "The truth is that most rare-film collectors chase their quarry by licking stamps, sending and copying DVDs. But there is a small and noble band of people willing to figuratively don a balaclava, grab the bolt cutters and risk a prison sentence to bring an obscure print into their collection."

• Jason Wood talks with Nick Broomfield about Battle for Haditha. Related: Derek Malcolm and Nick Roddick in the Evening Standard.

• Helen Pidd interviews Ellen Page, while Cath Clarke considers the fates of young actresses that have preceded her.

• "Considering that tastes are fickle, and subject to the change that the BBFC acknowledges; considering that social consensus on what constitutes 'unacceptable' violence or sexual explicitness is a myth - what is grotesque to one person may be simply comical to another; considering that we can all exercise private censorship by controlling what we do and do not watch; and considering that no horror film, no matter how grisly, can out-gross the evening news - is it not time to ban the banners?" asks Lionel Shriver. "Surely true embrace of modernity would eliminate the BBFC altogether, and thus give Britons over the age of 18 credit for being grown-ups."

• The Old Vic's production of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow features Jeff Goldblum, Laura Michelle Kelly and Kevin Spacey. Simon Hattenstone talks with Goldblum.

• "What the theater likes, or can handle, is plays about Hollywood in which the people are crazy and shameless." A brief history from David Thomson. Also, the lasting impact of Eisenstein and Battleship Potemkin.

• Peter Bradshaw asks, "How soon is too soon for a movie based on a news story?" Also, "What would it be like if the Baftas really were for British films only? Would that be so terrible?"

• And: "[S]mall independent cinemas in Britain, often showing their own alternative repertory schedule, have shown that they are tough survivors. And there is something not merely charming but intriguing and sometimes weirdly exciting about going to a tiny cinema, especially when there is hardly anyone else there: it is as if it's your own secret place."

• The fashion world on film: a quick guide from Hadley Freeman.

• News bits: "Charlize Theron is talks to play Hollywood actor and inventor Hedy Lamarr... Emily Blunt is in talks to play a Texas woman who finds herself forced to look after a young girl who has become separated from her illegal immigrant mother.... Josh Hartnett will play a nameless, vengeful drifter in the 'spaghetti-Western-samurai-gangster mashup' Bunraku."

"I would argue careful attention is requisite in watching an Eric Byler film, whose cadences are exploratory, circumabulating around the doubts and fears of the lovelorn with wary curiosity." Michael Guillén talks with him about Tre.

"Fundamental issues of ethnic and religious identity and the agony of exile are at the heart of Live and Become, an intermittently compelling swatch of recent Israeli history filtered through the experience of an African immigrant," writes Stephen Holden.

Also in the New York Times:

• "For what it is - a romantic comedy about the rivalry between a jealous ghost and a flaky psychic for the love of a veterinarian - Over Her Dead Body is not bad," writes AO Scott. Also, "the dispiriting, uninspired sameness of romantic comedy strikes me as something of a scandal." An overview of the genre and its sad state.

• Rocky and Rambo, John McClane and Indiana Jones, they're all back. "But something more than advances in star grooming and special effects is behind this peculiar phenomenon," writes Dave Kehr. "If our movie stars are refusing to age, it's in part because we won't allow them to. The natural life cycle of the leading man has been drastically curtailed."

• Kathleen Turner "is making her New York directing debut with a revival of Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Crimes of the Heart," writes Erik Piepenburg, introducing his interview. "In addition Ms Turner has an autobiography out this month called Send Yourself Roses.... In the book Ms Turner discusses her struggles with rheumatoid arthritis and alcoholism, dissects her most famous roles and calls out some of her co-stars. (Burt Reynolds? 'Burt was just nasty,' she writes.)"

• Jeannette Catsoulis is hardly surprised that the American remake of Danny and Oxide Pang's The Eye stinks.

• "Underachieving even by the standards of stoner comedies, Strange Wilderness is so inert that it doesn't so much unreel on screen as loiter there, giggling at its own outrageousness," writes Matt Zoller Seitz.

• Andy Webster on Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert and its "diverting 3-D effects."

In the Austin Chronicle, Melanie Haupt talks with John Sayles and Gary Clark Jr about Honeydripper.

"Alain Resnais's 1961 Last Year at Marienbad remains one of cinema's glorious enigmas, endlessly compelling and intriguing," writes Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times. More from Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat: "Besides its influence on films like The Shining, Mulholland Dr and The Usual Suspects, Marienbad can be seen as a precursor to The Matrix, with the latter's cat doppelgangers, frozen crowds, and internally constructed environments. Marienbad's fluid reality is almost like cyberpunk before there was cyberpunk."

AICN's Moriarty finishes off his marathon list of 24 favorite films of 2007.

Geoffrey Macnab finds Hollywood's over-reliance on CGI these days "deeply alarming" - "Is it time to begin a campaign for "real" films?" Also in the Independent, Chris Sullivan talks with Daniel Day-Lewis.

For the Washington Post, Kevin O'Donnell reviews Kathleen Tracy's Sacha Baron Cohen: The Unauthorized Biography: From Cambridge to Kazakhstan: "[T]he whole thing seems dashed off."

"It is fair to say the success of the Southern Documentary Fund (SDF) is partly due to its proximity to both Full Frame and Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies," writes Neil Morris in the Independent Weekly. "But, for five years SDF has evolved from an invention born out of necessity into an independent, influential name in the regional documentary community."

Online snicker. Ward Sutton: "Striking Screenwriters Drafted to Make Iraq War Less 'Boring.'"

Online viewing tip. You've seen it already, but who knows, maybe you're in the mood for it again: What's Sarah Silverman been up to lately?

Posted by dwhudson at February 2, 2008 8:58 AM