Shorts, fests, etc, 8/1.

"At May's Festival de Cannes, buyers rushed to see the latest work from three American auteurs: Steven Soderbergh's Che, James Gray's Two Lovers and Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York," recalls the Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Goldstein. "But the fest ended without any of the films clinching a US sale.... The tough market the three films encountered reflects an indie film industry rattled by folding specialty divisions, economic woes and the challenge of keeping films in theaters. A climate of risk-aversion not seen since the death of auteur-driven films in the 1970s has set in."

Via Movie City News, which also points to the Spanish trailer for the first part of Che, The Argentine.

Anita Pati reports on producer Vivek Agrawal's "first foray into social realism, or 'arthouse' cinema, as he describes it. He's chosen honour killings as the focus for Land, Gold, Women, the first Bollywood feature film on this controversial subject." Writer/director Avantika Hari "says the film aims to destroy the myth that honour killings are related to Islam or even religion, pointing out recorded cases in Sicily, Latin America and Christian parts of Jordan."

Also in the Guardian: "Most of the gigantic, widescreen, special effects movies flare up for a short while like fireworks, and then fizzle out against the wider landscape of cinema history," argues Ronald Bergan.

"Framed through the perspective of a doomed, anonymous 20 year old militant student whose restless spirit hovers over the city to confront its legacy of poverty, underprivilege, and cruelty, each story exposes society's complicity in the unraveling of a natural crisis into human catastrophe." Acquarello on Mrinal Sen's Calcutta 71.

Scott Kirsner offers a peek or two into his new book, Inventing the Movies, "which aims to be both a technological history of Hollywood and a parable for innovators of any stripe about the challenges of introducing new ideas to an established industry."

"Jonathan Kahana, author of Intelligence Work: The Politics of American Documentary, has a couple of interesting posts over at the Columbia University Press blog," notes Chuck Tryon. "The first revisits a list of the 'best documentaries of all time' that he was commissioned to write for an in-flight magazine, with the stipulation that all of the films he cited be available on DVD. He followed that post up today with another post listing some great documentaries that should be available on DVD but aren't, including An American Family and Chris Marker's Letter from Siberia."

"[T]he behind-the-scenes story of how The Midnight Meat Train came to be is a better story than anything on offer in its script, because the distributor in question is Lionsgate - the company that just landed a $340 million credit line that it hopes to use to take over the entertainment world," writes Grady Hendrix in the New York Sun. He spots signs that "Lionsgate is no longer in the business of genre filmmaking... For horror fans, this is a sure sign that the landscape is changing and the 'hard-R' horror movie is going the way of the dinosaur."

Fests:

• "It's been 37 years since I interviewed Busby Berkeley, then a crusty but still energetic 75, in a Berlin hotel room, but the memory remains vivid," muses Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. "Just like his singular films, which are getting a very welcome 10-picture retrospective starting today at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. You wouldn't necessarily know it from the framework UCLA has chosen, which calls the series Sex and the Single Girl: The Escapades of Busby Berkeley and focuses on the arcane academic notion of the 'seraglio effect,' but the eye-popping dance numbers Berkeley created during a long career in Hollywood need to be seen - and seen on a big screen - because they are, plain and simple, an enormous amount of fun."

• The BFI's Clint Eastwood season runs throughout August, so Time Out's Adam Lee Davies looks back on a long career, decade by decade.

• The Chicago Reader previews the first week of the Black Harvest International Festival of Film and Video, running through August 28.

• "Al Pacino will be celebrated by the Rome Film Festival with a lifetime achievement nod," reports Nick Vivarelli for Variety.

• Just launched: The site for SXSW 09.

• Kristin Thompson has a big report on Comic-Con, with lots of pix. And that's just Part 1. Related: Jeremy Kay reports in the Guardian on Geek Power.

• Online gallery. Cinematical has a nice set of posters for the Canadian Filmmakers Festival.

Keith Phipps talks with Edgar Wright about Spaced for the AV Club.

For the London Times, Hugo Rifkind talks with Ben Kingsley about Elegy, while the Telegraph's John Hiscock talks with him about The Love Guru and The Wackness.

The Dark Knight "is stirring up reactions and emotions that I've heretofore never encountered, and I've spent the past few days trying to figure out why," writes Filmbrain. One idea: "Though [Armond White] hated the film's 'hip, nihilistic tendencies,' I think this is precisely why the film has stuck so deep a chord with so many, for The Dark Knight addresses the zeitgeist of our post-9/11 world, but does so without the annoying complexity of real-world issues."

"Despite the dollops of whimsy and tear-jerking narration, Sixty Six charts a sentimental struggle toward manhood with period-appropriate charm," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the NYT (more from Steve Dollar in the NY Sun). Also, America the Beautiful. More on that one from Darrell Hartman in the New York Sun.

On the new Brideshead Revisited: Godfrey Cheshire (Independent Weekly), Jen Johans, Shawn Levy (Oregonian) and Justin Stewart (Stop Smiling). Earlier: Last week's reviews.

Dennis Harvey at SF360 on Before I Forget: "Unexpected fan John Waters called it 'the best feel-bad gay movie ever made,' and wondered if it was the sort of thing Fassbinder would be making now had he not self-destructed a quarter-century ago. It's feel-bad in the sense of dyspeptic rather than tragic: Admitting that malaise is the only thing that keeps him going, our protagonist here is fairly miserable and fairly proud of it."

"10 Best Masturbation Scenes"? Christopher Campbell's got 'em at the SpoutBlog.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, reviewed: Todd Brown (Sideshow), Richard Corliss (Time, Alonso Duralde (MSNBC), Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times), Stephen Holden (New York Times), Jette Kernion (Cinematical), Andy Klein (LA CityBeat), Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle), Bill Gibron (PopMatters), Leonard Klady (MCN), Nathan Rabin (AV Club), Vadim Rizov (Voice), Mike Russell (Oregonian), Kenneth Turan (Los Angeles Times) and Stephanie Zacharek (Salon). And Ryan Gilbey talks with Maria Bello for the Guardian, while, for the LAT, Susan King asks director Rob Cohen about his favorite mummy movies. Related online viewing: The Art of the Title Sequence.

For Slate, Constance Casey takes a botanist to WALL•E: "Maybe the exercise he got pushed into (I paid for his ticket) is a bit on the literal side, but it is interesting to see where he found the movie departing from credibility."

Online browsing tip. Czech Film Posters, via John Coulthart.

Online listening tip. Dennis Cozzalio wraps "Double Secret Probation Month" with a DVD commentary you follow the next time you watch Animal House.

Online viewing tip. Get Your War On, animated. It's on.

Online viewing tips. Eliza rounds up "Great new videos" for Creative Review.

Posted by dwhudson at August 1, 2008 12:05 PM