Film Comment. Sept/Oct 08.

Rounding up this year's Cannes for the last issue of Film Comment, Amy Taubin noted that "The only film that had my adrenaline pumping beginning to end was Steven Soderbergh's marathon two-part Che." Now for the new issue, introducing a conversation with the director she forges into a telling of the epic's making, she argues that "Soderbergh's own will - to shape every aspect of this project from conception to release - is palpable in Che, the film that places him in the ranks of the masters."

Pablo Suárez on The Other: "Dealing with much the same questions as his debut film Just for Today, [Ariel] Rotter's latest confirms the arrival of a singular sensibility." The film screens at the Walter Reade on September 17 and 18 as part of the Film Comment Selects series and Latinbeat 2008, opening today and running through September 25. Martin Tsai previews Latinbeat for today's New York Sun.

Chris Chang calls out for a distributor for a film by another Argentine, Pablo Fendrik: The Mugger.

"No film captures the glittering, zombified world of yé-yé pop royalty with as much style as Marc'O's 1968 musical Les Idoles," writes Sam Di Iorio. "Think of it as an all-singing, all-dancing missing link between the melancholy pop fantasy of Godard's Masculin-Féminin and the aerial views and blank screens of Guy Debord's Critique de la separation."

"Forty years ago Nagisa Oshima was one of the biggest names in world cinema, a brilliant modernist who made consistently electrifying films, each one radically different in form and style from the rest," writes Tony Rayns. "If he'd been French, he'd be as well known as Godard - and probably more influential.... [S]o the touring retrospective put together by James Quandt at the Cinematheque Ontario is an essential reassertion of his talent and importance." Three related online exclusives: Rayns on In the Realm of the Senses, from the September/October 1976 issue, James Bouras on the censorship of that film (January/February 1977) and Chuck Stephens on Gohatto (November/December 2000).

Laura Kern: "Vampire lore, which has held its ground within pop culture since the creatures of the night's fangs were first bared even pre-Bram Stoker, and has been enjoying a distinct upswing of late, rarely comes across as inspired and alive as it does in Tomas Alfredson's exquisitely crafted Let the Right One In, written by John Ajvide Lindqvist, adapted from his own bestselling novel."

Paul Fileri has an onine viewing tip: "Launched in June, Europa Film Treasures has quickly vaulted to the top ranks of online video-on-demand ventures spearheaded by moving-image archival institutions. As such, it takes its place alongside such valuable destinations as the Library of Congress's American Memory site, the British Film Institute's YouTube channel and the UbuWeb Film & Video resource."

Posted by dwhudson at September 5, 2008 5:51 AM