Shorts, 2/24.

"As with Ten Skies and 13 Lakes before it, James Benning's new film RR forms great ideas and unexpectedly voluptuous beauty out of modest and strict means, content, and style," writes Daniel Kasman in the Auteurs' Notebook.

Also: "I'm not sure [J'entends plus la guitare (I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar)] is any more or less distinguishable from Garrel's other films, or more or less personal. Instead, it is another Philippe Garrel film, which may already say it all—or, at least, say enough. In other words, a masterpiece much like the rest."

Filmbrain recounts the struggle to get into a screening of Brad Anderson's Transsiberian at the Berlinale. Turns out it was worth it, since the film "is a brilliant genre exercise in white-knuckle tension and suspense that avoids the grand third-act set piece that has become practically obligatory these days."

Jesse McKinley profiles NBA superstar and movie producer Baron Davis. Stacy Peralta tells him that Davis was crucial to realizing Made in America, Peralta's doc about gangs in Los Angeles. "Davis acted as a liaison to the neighborhoods where a white, 50-something ex-skater like Mr Peralta might not be exactly welcomed with open arms, especially when bearing a camera."

Also in the New York Times:

• David L Stern reports from Kazakhstan: "Call it, if you will, the Revenge of the Borats. Flush with oil profits, led by a prideful autocrat, this emerging petro-state is experiencing a cinematic boomlet led by KazakhFilm, the state-run movie company. Mongol, which was financed privately and directed by a Russian, is the country's first Oscar nominee, a visually lush work that depicts the early years of the Asian steppes' most famous ancient leader with graphic battle scenes to make Sam Peckinpah blush."

• Caryn James looks ahead to a new season in New York theater: "At the top of my want-to-see list, mostly because it pairs a first-rate actor with one of our best playwrights, is Stephen Rea in Sam Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horse, a one-man, one-act, one-horse play in which the horse's death sets off a Beckettian existential crisis." Speaking of Beckett, John Turturro will be appearing in Endgame. Then there's Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand in Clifford Odets's The Country Girl, Laura Linney and Mamie Gummer in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, "the revival of Christopher Hampton's version of the 18th-century novel about a femme fatale who schemes to ruin a young woman's honor, for pure sport," and Ellen Burstyn in Stephen Adly Guirgis's Little Flower of East Orange, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

• "Variety, Publishers Weekly and dozens of other trade publications are going up for sale as the publishing company Reed Elsevier looks to get out of the uncertain advertising market," reports Brian Stelter.

In a strange piece for Newsweek, Richard B Woodward argues that There Will Be Blood is a mess because Paul Thomas Anderson wrote it as well as directed it.

"Economics in Motion Pictures." If you're in the 11th or 12th grade and you think you've got an essay on this topic in you, see the Dallas Fed's contest announcement. Via Tim Hanrahan, who's got a few ideas in the Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog. Via Paul Krugman, who suggests one more.

Some of Jean-Dominique Bauby's friends are not happy with the liberties taken in the telling of the now-famous story in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Beth Arnold talks with them for Salon. Related: Andrew Gumbel profiles Julian Schnabel for the Independent.

Which is where James Mottram talks with Brian De Palma.

United Artists won't turn 90 until next January, but it's celebrating now. David Thomson tells the story behind the studio. Also in the Guardian: Ronald Bergan remembers cinematographer Edward Klosinski.

And: "The names of directors Richard Lester, Ken Russell and Tony Richardson conjure up a time, in the 1960s and early 70s, when British films were refreshing, lively and innovative. The Oscar-winning cinematographer David Watkin, who has died of prostate cancer aged 82, made almost as much of a contribution to this rich period as they did, particularly on the eight films he shot for Lester."

Cinematical's Kim Voynar talks with No End in Sight director Charles Ferguson.

Lynn Barber meets Anita Pallenberg for the Observer. "I am officially here to talk about Anita's role in a film called Mister Lonely directed by Harmony Korine." But of course, the Stones aren't exactly going to go unmentioned.

FilmInFocus is running a bit from Peter Cowie's 2006 talk with Jeanne Moreau.

Online listening tip. Rob Davis talks with Mike White about Year of the Dog and with Marjane Satrapi about Persepolis.

Online viewing tip. David Edelstein and Alex Gibney discuss Taxi to the Dark Side on Bloggerheads.tv.

Posted by dwhudson at February 24, 2008 2:34 PM