Fests and events, 9/14.

"Susan Sontag, an early and ardent admirer, once called [Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis] 'the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America,' surpassing even Borges," notes Larry Rohter in the New York Times. "In his 2002 book Genius, the critic Harold Bloom went even further, saying that Machado was 'the supreme black literary artist to date.' Comparisons to Flaubert and Henry James, Beckett and Kafka abound, and John Barth and Donald Barthelme have claimed him as an influence." Machado 21: A Centennial Celebration runs Monday through Friday and includes screenings of Nelson Pereira dos Santos's The Alienist and A Missa do Galo on Thursday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of Latinbeat 08.

At Moving Image Source, Dennis Lim looks back on this year's Robert Flaherty Film Seminar: "The sense of discovery comes not necessarily from encountering new work - though that's often the case - but more important, from stumbling on unexpected ideas and previously unnoticed connections."

John Tottenham previews The Tale of Eric Rohmer, running at LACMA through September 27: "The opportunity to catch these rare prints on the big screen should not be missed." More from Susan King in the Los Angeles Times.

Back in the LA Weekly, Doug Harvey visits In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor, on view at the Laguna Art Museum through October 5. One of many ways in: "Beautiful Losers - the show, the book, the movement, the movie - is probably the most acclaimed template for crossover between Lowbrow and mainstream, though its impact is more readily observable in the world of commercial graphic design than the Art World. Scene svengali Aaron Rose - whose Alleged Gallery in 90s Manhattan was the flash point of the BL submovement - has finally completed the documentary component of his marketing Gesamtkunstwerk, and it's actually very good. The artists mostly come off as nice folks, many struggling with the politics of their commercial success."

And back to the LAT: "There's no body of written evidence, no realpolitik smoking gun, to directly connect Henry Kissinger with Ines Kuperschmit," writes Reed Johnson. "But the former US foreign policy mastermind and the Argentine-born Los Angeles attorney both play intertwined, supporting roles in Juan Mandelbaum's haunting and disturbing documentary Our Disappeared (Nuestros Desaparecidos), one of 132 films that will be screened during the 12th annual Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival." The fest runs through Friday.

Monday night at the Brooklyn Independent Film Series: A program of shorts programmed by Michael Tully.

"[T]his year's Fantastic Fest will turn the Alamo's South Lamar locale into a genre-film-geek paradise that will prove, as if proof were needed, that the geeks have inherited the earth out from under Hollywood and gone viral on a global scale never before seen." A preview from Marc Savlov, including chats with Alamo founder Tim League and a few directors: Eduardo Sánchez (Seventh Moon; site), Eric Shapiro (Rule of Three) and Nicolás López (Santos).

Also in the Austin Chronicle: Anne S Lewis on Please Vote for Me, screening Wednesday at the Alamo Downtown.

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The Jackson Heights Film & Food Festival runs Thursday through September 21 and James van Maanen's got a preview.

For the Philadelphia City Paper, Shaun Brady gets a few words with Frederick Wiseman; on Sunday and Monday, Penn Cinema Studies will be screening "two of Wiseman's early, seminal films: Titicut Follies, the director's debut, which looks inside a prison for the criminally insane; and High School, a tract on enforced conformity shot at Philly's Northeast High in 1968. Wiseman will speak on 'Shooting and Editing a Documentary Film.'"

Londoners: Kino Fist returns on October 5.

In the Guardian:

• Phelim O'Neill briefly previews Osamu Tezuka: Movies Into Manga and the Cambridge Film Festival, running September 18 through 28.

• Andrea Hubert glances at Take One: Action!, running through 27 in Edinburgh, and Bite the Mango, Friday through September 25.

• Dave Hill notes that LondonSays is arguing that the London Film Festival needs to be more accessible to the people of London.

• Ronald Bergan looks back on the Venice Film Festival: "[E]ven though, over the years, traditional genres have been reinterpreted, revisionized, challenged or satirized, the genre film is extant but with all the well-loved conventions now well-worn cliches. As always, if one wants to seek out originality, even desperately for its own sake, as I do, one must look beyond genres."

James Danziger hits the New York galleries.

The Sheffield Doc/Fest (November 5 through 9) has its lineup lined up.

"Telluride is justly famous for the friendliness and efficiency of its staff - I should know since I am one of them," writes Timothy Sun at Not Coming to a Theater Near You. "I must say, though, it was a mediocre slate this year, both in the audacity of the films and in the love audiences felt for them. There was no I'm Not There to rewrite our conceptions of cinema, nor a Juno to blast off the buzz machines; no Brokeback Mountain to take hold of the national discourse, no 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days to announce a Palme d'Or and a New Wave. What we did have was a perfectly good year, with nothing mind-blowingly great or bad."

Posted by dwhudson at September 14, 2008 11:28 AM