Shorts, 7/21.

Craig Keller: "If we have to classify the films of Louis Feuillade - and we don't, because there are no rules in cinema or criticism (love or war) - ...we'd do well to stop deferring to the contemporary marketing that announced them as adventure serials, and start referring to these (un-/)determinedly recursive five-plus-hour sagas by what they really are, which are extended psychodramas - dangerous, occult, quasi-cathartic manipulations of the spectating psyche."

"Between about 1913 and 1920, the way movies looked changed, and we are still living with the results. What were the changes? What brought them about?" David Bordwell traces the "trail to continuity" and along the way points to an amazing database at CineMetrics.

"One of the more interesting challenges in viewing [Tex] Avery's vintage MGM work is learning how to process various aspects of their racism and sexism without overlooking their good-humored humanity or drowning in political correctness," writes Jonathan Rosenbaum. "Though I've only sampled [Floriane] Place-Verghnes's [Tex Avery: A Unique Legacy, 1942 - 1955] so far, she appears to pull off this difficult task."

Gus Van Sant's Milk is slated to open in December; FilmInFocus is running Graham Fuller's 1993 interview, conducted "at his rented apartment near Castro Street in San Francisco in April 1993. Van Sant had located himself there in order to begin pre-production on The Mayor of Castro Street, a film adaptation of Randy Shilts's biography of Harvey Milk, the city supervisor whose 1978 assassination (alongside that of Mayor George Moscone) made him a martyr for gay rights. Shortly after we talked, Van Sant quietly withdrew from the project, unwilling to direct the version of the script that Oliver Stone and his fellow producers wished to make."

Scott MacDonald's Canyon Cinema: The Life and Times of an Independent Film Distributor "fills a major gap in our knowledge of the history of avant-garde film," writes Malcolm Turvey for Artforum. "This history is determined not just by films that are made but by the extent to which those films are seen - and that, in turn, depends in major ways on distributors such as Canyon."

"As it has so often, commercial calculation finds a willing handmaiden in critical laziness, even (or perhaps especially) that evinced by those more intelligent and discerning writers who devote their efforts and talents towards designing elaborate intellectual justifications for films that neither require nor deserve them," writes Andrew Tracy in Reverse Shot. "By elevating the latest pop detritus to the level of godhead, by implicitly declaring the centrality of pop moviemaking (most often bad pop moviemaking) above all else, [critical discussion] only further occludes those films that don't have the advantage of being relentlessly drilled into our consciousness by the marketing machine.... All of which is a grand lead-up to the comparatively puny declaration that Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II is a lousy piece of moviemaking and a lousier work of imagination, its thunderous acclamation aside."

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea "is on course to become Miyazaki's, and the territory's, 2nd biggest hit ever," notes Jason Gray.

With The Spirit slated for a Christmas season opening, Andy Webster profiles Frank Miller, who, growing up, "supplemented his superhero diet with Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane and broke through in the 1980s with a gritty run on Marvel's Daredevil; DC's Ronin, which embraced Japanese and European influences; and the classic four-issue Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. He also created the graphic novel 300, about the battle of Thermopylae. All bore his feverish, testosterone-infused stamp."

Also in the New York Times:

• Richard Bernstein reports on China's Kung Fu Panda debate: "The main question being asked is: How could Western filmmakers have used Chinese themes to create such a brilliant animated movie with such widespread appeal to the Chinese themselves? Why, in other words, doesn't China itself seem to be able to use its rich traditions to such brilliant cinematic and commercial effect?"

• "Extracting a workable piece of entertainment from Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, three Beckett novels published in the early 1950s and generally grouped as a trilogy, might at first seem a dubious undertaking. Although they are considered by many to be masterpieces of modernism, these novels are forbiddingly dense works." Charles Isherwood on the Lincoln Center Festival's Beckett series, particularly I'll Go On, with Barry McGovern. More from Michael Gurewitsch. Earlier: Isherwood on Eh Joe, with Liam Neeson, directed by Atom Egoyan. And an accompanying, mesmerizing audio slide show.

• Patrick Healy profiles playwright Tracy Letts.

• Vivian S Toy reports on how some New Yorkers are faring when film and TV productions rent out their property to use as locations. They're faring very well, of course.

"In [The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I'll Kill You!], Lisa Dombrowski, associate professor of film studies at Wesleyan University, reveals a filmmaker who was first and foremost a writer." Rodger Jacobs at PopMatters.

"[Timothy] Treadwell [in Grizzly Man and Graham Dorrington in The White Diamond seem like two poles for Herzog now, mad outcast and mad scientist, with those in between them not proving interesting enough. In [Encounters at the End of the World], I get the sense that Herzog, like the old master that he is, is favoring the Dorrington side, that of the scientist, that of craft and virtuosity." That's Daniel Quiles in a note to Roger Ebert, who comments and passes along a reply from Herzog himself.

In the meantime, as Karina Longworth notes at the SpoutBlog, following Richard Roeper's exit, Ebert, too, "will no longer be associated" with At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper. Here's his statement; Shawn Levy, David Poland and Chuck Tryon comment.

"I recently caught a documentary called New York 77, which brilliantly captured that tumultuous year. While it's true that the city was an economic disaster, crime was running rampant (it was the summer of Sam to boot), and the city almost destroyed itself during the blackout, there was a vibrancy and immediacy that even this precocious 12 year-old was able to pick up on." So Filmbrain's been catching up with more films from the period and finds a passage worth dwelling on in Wim Wenders's Alice in the Cities.

The exhibition Hadrian: Empire and Conflict opens at the British Museum on Thursday and will be on view through October 26 and Dan Snow's Hadrian has just aired on the BBC. But wait, there's more: "Later this summer filming will start in Morocco on a version of the emperor's story by British director John Boorman. Based on Marguérite Yourcenar's 1951 novel, Memoirs of Hadrian, Boorman's film casts Antonio Banderas in the lead role and Charlie Hunnam as Antinous, the Greek boy who became his lover and then drowned mysteriously in the Nile." Vanessa Thorpe on "The cult of Hadrian." Related online listening: Dan Snow on Start the Week.

Also in the Observer:

• After watching Eric Idle's Spamalot soar in Broadway and West End theatres, fellow Monty Python star John Cleese is rewriting his hit film comedy A Fish Called Wanda as a stage musical." Jason Solomons gets a quick word with him.

• A panel of crime writers attempts to explain the appeal of The Wire. Also: Hermione Hoby and Sarah Hughes present a "beginner's guide" to the series, while Hugh Montgomery offers a "brief history of crime and punishment on American TV" and Killian Fox talks with writer and novelist Dennis Lehane.

• Miranda Sawyer on Sex and the City, Mamma Mia! and so forth: "I'm very happy that more culture is being aimed specifically at women, that we have new excuses to get together in big groups and scream just because it's funny. I'd just like what's on offer to be, you know, better."

• Hephzibah Anderson talks with Greta Scacchi.

• Philip French on Dick Powell, Summer Hours and Puffball.

• Ruaridh Nicoll yearns for a time when films raised questions rather than force-feeding us answers.

Jason Sperb: "Five Forms of Cinematic Nostalgia (or everything I need to know about the films and the past I learned from the Star Trek Movies)."

Steve-O's Noir of the Week: The Guilty (1947).

Brannavan Gnanalingam talks with Adam Wingard about Pop Skull and the Lumière Reader; also: a talk with Yung Chang about Up the Yangzte.

At Stream, Eric Kohn profiles Open Source Cinema pioneer Brett Gaylor.

"Nearly three years since the creation of the Weinstein Co, the duo insist they've finally got all the elements in place to do justice to a full slate of films, some already shooting, others ready to go before the cameras." The Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Goldstein talks with Bob and Harvey Weinstein: "Still, like everyone else in the indie film sector, the Weinsteins face a tightening credit market and a glut of films that have made scoring a hit ever harder. As a result, there are doubters who question how the Weinstein Co is financing its many projects."

New blog on the block: Lawrence Levi's Nothing Sacred at Nextbook.

Mihcael Guillén calls for a Kiyoshi Kurosawa Blog-a-Thon: Friday through August 1.

Online listening tip. Hitchcock and Truffaut talk about North By Northwest at If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger...

Online viewing tip. David Carr introduces Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life. His Own. Via Movie City News. Related: An excerpt in the NYT Magazine.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Pierre Huyghe at the DVblog.

Online viewing tips, round 2. Seth Rogen, James Franco and others talk comedy in the NYT's T Magazine. It's probably easier to access what you want to see here.

Online viewing tips, round 3. The Think Tank documentary series.

Posted by dwhudson at July 21, 2008 3:44 PM