Shorts, fests, etc, 10/13.

For the London Times, Nicola Graydon talks with Tony Curtis about American Prince, "a rollercoaster of a book in which he's brutally frank about his childhood, his affairs, stardom, drug addiction, depression, women and sex. Lots and lots of sex. It's a romp through Hollywood's golden age, when Curtis, with his thick, black hair and cerulean eyes, practically invented celebrity as we know it."

"I need to find a way to wind them all up and set them going in the first episode - in Dickens's novel we don't even meet Little Dorrit until around page 70. In fact, Dickens spends his first chapter in a dungeon in Marseille, with Rigaud, a French wife-murderer, and Cavalletto, an Italian smuggler, who have nothing to do with anything yet. How perverse is that?" Andrew Davies on the adaptation to be broadcast on BBC1 at the end of the month.

Also in the Observer, Christopher Goodwin previews a politically charged season at the movies (on a similar note, Guy Adams in the Independent) - and: "Ah, October," sighs Rachel Cooke. "A month for cranking up the central heating, pulling on your best knitwear and gazing... no, not at the burnished, falling leaves, but at the great piles of celebrity books that, seemingly overnight, have appeared in your local bookshop. I wandered into mine and it was like walking into the green room backstage at the Baftas, only with the obvious advantage that the famous names staring up at me could not actually speak."

"If I took the many film books I have, from the general movie history books to biographies to those dealing with specific genres, and ranked them according to what I learned from them, The Haunted Screen, by Lotte Eisner, would easily be in the top three." Jonathan Lapper explains.

"Call it 'There Will Be Hamburger Phones': More than 20 years after American independent cinema entered its latest Golden Age, what started as a fiercely autonomous cinematic response to Hollywood and its dominant genres has become a genre itself. And like all genres, the indie aesthetic is rife with its own versions of the hackneyed conventions, tired tropes and cliched themes that weigh down the most predictable action spectacle or by-the-numbers rom-com." Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post, via Sujewa Ekanayake.

Gabriel Wardell has details on two books you might be interested in: Chris Holland's Film Festival Secrets: A Handbook for Independent Filmmakers and Heidi Van Lier's Indie Film Rule Book.

The Return of the War Room airs tonight on the Sundance Channel. Brian Stelter, also in the New York Times: "Watching the [original War Room] 16 years later... a viewer can't help but wonder why the campaign allowed cameras at all. [DA] Pennebaker's theory: 'If you find somebody who's doing something really interesting, and he's good at it, and he knows he's good at it, they kind of want to have that memorialized.'"

"If there was ever a time when Americans needed to hear a cross-section of voices from the Arab world, it's now," writes Michael Fox, introducing his interview with executive director Michel Shehadeh for SF360. "Sure, the 12th annual Arab Film Festival, as always, is a celebration of community and identity and the art of cinema. But it also provides an all-too-rare window onto the Arab street without CNN obscuring the view."

More fests and events:

• Todd Brown's got the list of award-winners at the Sitges Film Festival; the Globe and Mail's Fiona Morrow reports on the winners at the Vancouver International Film Festival. And David Walsh files a first report from that one for the WSWS.

• Eric Kohn sends another dispatch from the Morelia International Film Festival into indieWIRE.

• Tonight in San Francisco, Laura Lukitsch presents her doc-in-progress, Beard Club.

• Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay notes that Mike Plante's coverage of the recently wrapped Off Camera festival in Krakow has been a terrific read, noting especially "his account of Holly Woodlawn at the Closing Night."

• Mike Everleth has the lineup for this weekend's Arizona Underground Film Festival.

James Mottram profiles Joel and Ethan Coen for the Independent.

For the Telegraph, Horatia Harrod talks with Diane Keaton about Bill Wood's Business. Via Movie City News.

At the Parallax View, Sean Axmaker talks with Jonathan Demme about Rachel Getting Married.

Ridley Scott's schedule: Nottingham, the Robin Hood movie with Russell Crowe; The Forever War, an adaptation of Joe Haldeman's 1974 sci-fi novel; and only after both of those, the Brave New World adaptation with Leonardo DiCaprio. Ben Child has more. Chris Barsanti comments on The Forever War: "Given that the book stands as one of the greatest, genre-defining sci-fi works of the latter 20th Century (right up there with Neuromancer, Canticle for Leibowitz and Ender's Game), expectations are high, and its vision of faraway, neverending conflict just a tad relevant."

Also in the Guardian, the latest poster Paul Rennie takes a close look at is the one for Breakfast at Tiffany's.

At Daily Plastic, J Robert Parks takes a quick look ahead to next summer's season of sequels, prequels and TV show adaptations.

New blog on the block: Marshall Fine's Hollywood & Fine, via Glenn Kenny.

Online listening tip. "The very enterprising and generous Department of Film and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen began its 'Director's Cut' series of public interviews last year, and is now set to launch this year's series," notes Catherine Grant. "ll of last year's interviews have been made available online in wonderfully long webcasts."

Online viewing tip. Joe Swanberg's got a new web series on IFC: The Stagg Party is a documentary about Ellen Stagg, a commercial photographer who's now concentrating more on erotic work. So, you know, NSFW.

Online viewing tips. Paddy Johnson selects "10 Top Music Videos Made By Artists: Contemporary Edition." Earlier: The Classics list.

Posted by dwhudson at October 13, 2008 2:47 PM