Shorts, fests, etc, 10/21.

"Chuck Palahniuk is fast becoming Hollywood's favorite author," notes Ben Child. "The Fight Club writer's novel Haunted looks set to become his fifth book to be adapted for the big screen.... Belgian filmmaker Koen Mortier, who made his directing debut on last year's unorthodox comedy Ex-Drummer, will take charge of the cameras and write the screenplay for Haunted." Twitch's Todd Brown most definitely approves this matchup. Related: Hiram Lee at the WSWS on Choke.

Also in the Guardian, Ben Walters: "Plenty of movies divide opinion, but few provoke punch-ups. Abrasion and awkwardness, however, are the stock in trade of Frownland, a micro-budget 16mm endeavour that took more than five years to bring to the screen."

Looking for a good book? Catherine Grant's found several. And they're online. And free.

FilmInFocus runs an extract from Brian De Palma and Quentin Tarantino's 1994 conversation about violence in the movies.

"There's nothing overtly strange about [Arthur Russell's] music, except it's ethereal without entering the more recognizable realms of psychedelia or new age (and intimate without qualifying as conventional singer/songwriter fare)," writes Kathy Fennessey at the Siffblog. "It's accessible, in other words, but not commercial. And there you have it: the kiss of death. You also have the makings of a cult artist, and that's where Wild Combination begins..."

"Melancholia is most probably [Lav] Diaz's most difficult film for the lone reason that Diaz affords little or no comfort to his viewers," writes Francis Cruz. "There is very little humor to the film and the story, grounded by philosophies and ideas that might be too personal or hard to grasp, branches into different and sometimes convoluted directions. However, as with most of Diaz's films, the reward of completing one is not in the pleasure of sitting through eight hours of his trademark black and white aesthetics and seemingly endless ramblings and conversations, but in the lingering and often valid points that Diaz would have you digesting and exploring for a far longer period of time."

Cullen Gallagher, writing at Hammer to Nail, finds Erik Poppe's Troubled Water to be "an arresting probe into morality and forgiveness that leaves one stunned not only by its emotionally stark performances, but also by the film's complex, musical structure that quietly underlies the narrative and binds everything together."

"In his acclaimed film Why We Fight, documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki takes a hard look at the militarization of modern America and what it says about our priorities as a nation. His new book, The American Way of War, continues this line of investigation in greater depth, tracing the rise of the military-industrial complex from its origins under FDR, Truman and Eisenhower all the way to its disproportionate influence over contemporary politics and policy, culminating with the Bush administration." Christopher Bateman talks with him for VF Daily.

I've dropped this in the latest W. entry, but it should be noted here, too: "This week, Slate is featuring a conversation about George Bush's presidency, prompted by Oliver Stone's film W. Participants are Oliver Stone; Bob Woodward, author of The War Within; Ron Suskind, author of The Way of the World; and Jacob Weisberg, author of The Bush Tragedy."

John Rogers's "Not-So-Gentle Post" on Hollywood conservatives follows the "Gentle" one.

The Dallas Video Festival has been around for 21 years, but for the first time, this year's edition, slated for November 6 through 9, will be coming at you via iTunes as well.

More fests and events:

• At SF360, Robert Avila has an overview of the Arab Film Festival, which runs through October 28.

• "On the 45th anniversary of this most important cinema summit of the region, the national Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, and its global gateway, the 4th International Eurasia Film Festival, provided 10 days of exuberance where continents, cultures and dreams had met and reconciled, ending last Sunday night with a splendid awards ceremony." A dispatch from Kerem Bayraktaroglu.

• Also at indieWIRE: "Canada's longest running film festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinema (FNC) has seen a remarkable rebound since the drama that surrounded it a few years back." Peter Knegt explains.

• Nick Palevsky files a second report on the Bangkok International Film Festival in the Auteurs' Notebook.

• "Film festivals have traditionally been an oasis, a heady escape for artists and dealmakers removed from real-world concerns. No longer. The financial crisis is hitting some US film festivals - and hard." Nick Vivarelli, Ali Jaafar and Michael Jones report for Variety.

Peter Knegt profiles Michelle Williams for indieWIRE.

Fabien Lemercier talks with István Szabó for Cineuropa.

At VF Daily, Julian Sancton talks with Lance Hammer about Ballast.

"I've been obsessed with Terminator for years, and can barely contain my excitement at its return to cinemas," writes Guy Adams in the Independent. "In the meantime, like all fans, I've been making do with the remarkably good Sarah Connor Chronicles, which has achieved extraordinary success on both sides of the Atlantic."

Michael Guillén's taken more notes, this time following a screening of Patti Smith: Dream of Life: "In possibly one of the most generous Q&As I've ever attended, all I wanted to do afterwards was rush home and play 1975 all over again."

Dennis Cozzalio talks with Peet Gelderblom about his comic strip, Directorama.

Vince Keenan defends Body of Lies.

"Suddenly, across Hollywood, the stock market is not such a sexy subject anymore," reports Brooks Barnes. "As they have watched their 401(k)'s shrivel in recent weeks, entertainment executives have started to grapple with how best to reflect the global economic crisis in movie and television story lines, or whether to bring the topic up at all." Also: "Universal is looking to sell Rogue Pictures, an indie unit that makes about four films a year in the horror and teen comedy genres." The Los Angeles Times' Patrick Goldstein comments.

"A prominent Pakistani filmmaker and distributor, Satish Anand, has been kidnapped in Pakistan's biggest city of Karachi, a top police official said Tuesday." Reuters reports.

Online viewing tip #1. At the SpoutBlog, Karina Longworth's got "The End of America, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's non-fiction adaptation of Naomi Wolf's book and ensuing lecture tour, which debuted on SnagFilms today. This is the first film I've seen that seems ideally suited to be seen as a blog embed, and not just because a good deal of the footage within was pulled from web video sources. Essentially a Top Ten list followed by a How To, it's the first film I've seen that seems to have internalized the structure of the traffic-baiting blog post."

Online viewing tip #2. Ted Johnson has Rosario Dawson's La Pasion De La Decision: Episode 5. Note the special guest star.

Online viewing tips. Selections from the Rooftop Films 2008 Summer Series.

Posted by dwhudson at October 21, 2008 2:21 PM