Shorts, fests, etc, 8/5.

"At her best, as in Alfonso Cuarón's Great Expectations (1998), [Anne] Bancroft remained technically proficient and frisky, yet her emotional fires had banked in a way that, say, Ellen Burstyn's have not," writes Dan Callahan, who goes on to highlight five performances at the House Next Door. "But if we look back at her performances from the 60s, they still retain their full power and often savage complexity."

For his next project, "Hong Sang-Soo Goes HD, Ultra Low Budget." X explains at Twitch, where Todd Brown has the latest twist in the weird, sad tale of the making of Ong Bak 2: "Call me crazy, but I smell the end of a career."

It's Joseph Cornell day at DC's.

Fests and events:

• "How will you spend the 7th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks?" asks Christopher Campbell at Cinematical. "Here's an idea: head to NYC's Two Boots Pioneer Theater for the opening night screening of Able Danger, an acclaimed independent film based around the conspiracy theory that US intelligence was involved in the planning and execution of the tragic events on the morning of that infamous date. Even if you think the idea of a 9/11 conspiracy is ludicrous and in poor taste, the premiere screening should be interesting, because writer-director Paul Krik will be on hand for a Q&A."

• Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne "are responsible for some of the screen's most disarmingly resonant portraits of modern Europe," writes Darrell Hartman for Artforum. "And they haven't availed themselves of much more than a handheld camera, a pocketful of virtually unknown actors, and a single Belgian town." Four of the brothers' films will be screening over four days beginning Thursday at the Anthology Film Archives.

• "Six more competition titles have been revealed by the San Sebastián Film Festival (September 18-27)," reports Sergio Ríos Pérez at Cineuropa. "This brings the number of films vying for the Golden Shell at Spain's most important film event to thirteen." One of them is Michael Winterbottom's Genova, starring Colin Firth, Catherine Keener and Hope Davis.

• "Dalí: Painting and Film - an exhibition that has transferred from Tate Modern to New York's Museum of Modern Art, where it runs to September 15 - is not a wholly convincing show," writes Ben Walters in the Guardian. "Its efforts to peg Dalí's paintings as quintessentially cinematic can make the hundred-plus works on show seem less interesting than they are. But the exhibition also provides an impressive haul of extant footage and production design work, from letters to storyboards, that offers a telling perspective on the artist's cinematic eye."

What We Do Is Secret is "an achingly earnest low-budget movie made by and for Germs fans," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. '[C]o-writer Michelle Baer Ghaffari was [Darby] Crash's roommate and close friend, and surviving band members Pat Smear (later a guitarist with Nirvana and then with the Foo Fighters), Lorna Doon and http://www.punknews.org/article/23135 all cooperated. Those who believe, with some justification, that the Germs' strangeness and power have never fully been appreciated will be delighted.... This isn't a boring movie or a dishonest one. But it's a relentlessly literal-minded one, light on vision and atmosphere, that moves through the history of the Germs with a checklist."

"Morgan Freeman was said to be in 'good spirits' in hospital today after breaking his arm and elbow in a car crash," reports the Guardian. Also: "Tom Waits once said that when he watched the film This Is Spinal Tap he didn't laugh, he just cried all the way through," notes Ian Winwood. "After sitting through a screening of Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Sacha Gervasi's multi award winning documentary, I know exactly how he felt.... If you gave me a £100 I wouldn't watch it again. But still I recommend that you do."

"If it were a wine, Randall Miller's Bottle Shock would strike most judges as a tad overbearing," writes S James Snyder in the New York Sun. "In its aim for herbal complexity, the film, which opens in New York tomorrow, mistakes a cluttered bouquet for a rich aroma, and while it has all the flavors one would expect, it assembles them in a rushed, almost random fashion. Piling one drama on top of another, the texture becomes a disaster - lacking subtlety, suffering from over-fermentation."

This Recording: Lauren Bans on "Quirky Aggressives" and The Wackness.

At the Film Experience, JA lists the top ten "Queens of Screams."

Online viewing tip #1. Dick Cavett talks with Elsa Lanchester about Charles Laughton and Isadora Duncan. Part 2/a>. Thanks, Jerry!

Online viewing tip #2. From Daniel Kasman in the Auteurs' Notebook, "A kiss for the ages, and an unforgettable attack against cynicism, irony, and sarcasm in the cinema."

Posted by dwhudson at August 5, 2008 8:40 AM