Other fests, other events, 4/23.

"The 10th Anniversary Ebertfest begins tonight in Urbana-Champaign. It is with some melancholy that I write these words on a legal pad in a hospital bed in Chicago. After consulting with my doctors, I have decided it may not prudent to try to make the journey today with a fractured hip." Get well, Roger Ebert!

Peter Sobczynski's blogging from the festival, running through Sunday, for Hollywood Bitchslap. Update, 4/24: Jim Emerson and Lisa Rosman are blogging the fest as well.

"Termed 'the longitudinal documentary' by Hot Docs Director of Programming Sean Farnel, films that follow a character or story over an extended period of time are increasingly problematic these days," writes Peter Knegt in indieWIRE. "Deals with distributors or television networks put pressure on the time a doc has to finish, often limiting the diachronic scope of the project. Three feature films screening at the 2008 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival: Jens Hoffman's 20 Seconds of Joy, Greg Kohs's Song Sung Blue and Nik Sheehan's Flicker, exemplfy this increasingly rare form in documentary filmmaking."

And AJ Schnack reviews At the Death House Door, To See If I'm Smiling and Song Sung Blue. Hot Docs runs through Sunday. Update, 4/24: Bob Turnbull on Jennifer Baichwal's 2002 portrait of photographer Shelby Lee Adams, The True Meaning of Pictures.

Attending the Minneapolis-St Paul International Film Festival? Rob Nelson's got some recommendations for you. And some more. Related online viewing: Chuck Olsen and Lori review five films they've caught at MSPIFF.

Chris Vognar has an overview of the USA Film Festival in the Dallas Morning News: "[A]s the grandfather of local fests, USA still has a way of bringing in master craftsmen with names that aren't as big as their talents and achievements." Through Sunday.

Dennis Cozzalio's looking forward to this weekend's kickoff of the Southern California Drive-In Movie Society's Drive-In Tailgate Party, celebrating 75 years of "this not-at-all dead, but instead resurging and uniquely American institution." Related online listening: Nancy Mullane on NPR.

Matt Dentler'll be painting Austin red before he departs for New York in June.

Matt Prigge rounds up local goings on in the Philadelphia Weekly.

Janine Armin files an entry in Artforum's diary on Milan's Salone del Mobile, "which opened last Wednesday to roaring crowds of shoppers and speculators.... This fantasia of beautiful things did not detract from auteur Peter Greenaway's multimedia extravaganza, Ultima Cena di Leonardo, which was shown at the Sala delle Cariatidi in Palazzo Reale, one of historic Milan's most stunning buildings."

ST VanAirsdale to New Yorkers: "First up on Saturday afternoon, Sissy Spacek and executive producer Ed Pressman will visit IFC Center for a special screening and discussion of Terrence Malick's Badlands.... Later that night the Walter Reade Theater is hosting a benefit screening of Glory at Sea!, whose filmmaker recently incurred a few thousand bone fractures and many times more dollars' worth of medical bills in a car accident before Glory's premiere at SXSW."

"Celebrating and singing the scene it records, Walden is four years (1964 - 68) seen through the corybantic 16mm Bolex of Jonas Mekas," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. At Anthology Film Archives tomorrow through Wednesday.

Also, New Yorkers, you have about two weeks to do the must-do day Brian Scholis maps out for you.

Online viewing tip. The Quay Brothers' trailer for Kinoteka, London's 6th Polish Film Festival, running through May. Related: filmPolska opens today in Berlin and runs through April 30.

Posted by dwhudson at April 23, 2008 3:21 PM