Shorts, 11/12.

"In the polymathic new book, Scarface Nation, Entertainment Weekly culture critic (and former New York film critic) Ken Tucker tracks the making of the film - and the ubiquitous influence of this 'great shallow masterpiece' through Scarface shower curtains and video games, porn, comic books and pajamas - which Tucker sometimes wears, to his wife's consternation." Boris Kachka "talked to Tucker about the reluctant reminiscences of [screenwriter Oliver] Stone, director Brian De Palma and star Al Pacino - three white guys' who to this day still don't understand their flick's enduring relevance." Update, 11/13: Louis Bayard has a brisk and entertaining review of Scarface Nation in Salon.

"New production and finance shingle Werc Werk Works has announced the cast for director Todd Solondz's latest film - the yet to be titled, part-sequel/part-variation of his 1998 film Happiness," reports Peter Knegt for indieWIRE. "The cast includes Allison Janney, Ciaran Hinds, Charlotte Rampling, Shirley Henderson, Michael Lerner, Michael Kenneth Williams, Paul Reubens, Paris Hilton and Chris Marquette."

"The Weinstein Co has acquired worldwide film rights to the Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winning play August: Osage County and will produce a feature adaptation," reports Variety's Michael Fleming.

Pamela Pettler (Corpse Bride, Monster House) has written a screenplay based on Monopoly - yes, the board game - which'll be directed by Ridley Scott. The Hollywood Reporter's Steven Zeitchik has more.

"In trying to add a new chapter to the long history of films made about the Holocaust, Defiance can barely move a narrative muscle without bumping into another, better movie that covers some of the same ground," writes Tim Grierson in Screen Daily. "Based on the true story of three Eastern-European brothers who led a ragtag army of fellow Jews to fight back against the Nazis, this action-drama from director Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai) is weighed down by muted performances, an unsparingly solemn tone and an overall lack of creative spark." More from Todd McCarthy in Variety and Michael Rechtshaffen in the Hollywood Reporter.

James Rocchi at Cinematical: "Younger audiences will ignore Last Chance Harvey like a an overdue bill notice in the post, but if you've been around the block of life a few times - on the bus or under it - you'll find that it wins you over, bit by bit, in no small part thanks to the mix of effortless charm and contemplated sincerity [Dustin] Hoffman and [Emma] Thompson bring to their work; the whole film has an air of lightweight gravity to it, and [writer/director Joel] Hopkins may not be swinging for the fences, but he knows just how to swing and hit for a solid double."

Anne Thompson: "One of my industry spies has emailed me an early review of David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt as the man who ages backwards."

"Of all the wars, the first world war seems the most emblematic, and the one which probably lends itself best to cinematic treatment," writes Ronald Bergan. "As no other war seemed as futile, it was easier to make convincing anti-war statements. Yet, paradoxically, great films on the subject have been few and far between since Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937), a paradigm for all subsequent films on the subject. Only Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) can be mentioned in the same breath as the films of the 1920s and 1930s."

Also in the Guardian: "Terence Davies's Of Time and the City, Steve McQueen's Hunger, Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir and Alex Gibney's Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson "are harbingers of a revolution in cinematic history because - even as Hollywood blockbusters do - they champion and exploit newly discovered technologies to express their ideas, only on tiny budgets," argues producer Don Boyd. "All four of these films were produced with digital cameras and digital editing equipment; their directors have taken a deliberate decision to move out of any creative comfort zone. Why is this happening now? Because the internet is radically destroying the film industry's editorial tyranny, in much the same way that the printing press diluted and destroyed the power of the priesthood in medieval Europe."

"Ford is one of the great artists of cinema. Not only because of the composition and the light of his shots but more deeply, because he shoots so quickly that he makes two movies at the same time: a movie to ward off time (stretching his stories out of fear of ending) and another to save the moment (the moment of the landscape, two seconds before the action)." Steve Erickson posts a translation of Serge Daney's 1988 piece on She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

The Czech film Tobruk offers insight into "the republic's fascinating if checkered relations with the Middle East, in particular, Egypt," writes Eric Walberg in the Al-Ahram Weekly.

Melissa Gronlund caught the Halloween screenings of Kenneth Anger's latest videos, Ich Will! and Uniform Attraction and writes for Artforum, "gone were the Aleister Crowley occultism and rich, decadent symbolism the now-81-year-old filmmaker deployed in such classics as Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) and Scorpio Rising (1964), which was also screened. Instead the recent work carried forward, a little thinly, Anger's interest in the eroticism of masculine subcultures, made manifest through found footage and military propaganda rather than via the extraordinary ceremonies, rites, and pageantry the filmmaker orchestrated in his earlier work."

"Something of a companion piece to Manoel de Oliveira's No, or the Vain Glory of Command, João Botelho's brooding and atmospheric Quem és tu? similarly explores the intersection of history and myth, empire and subjugation in its exposition on identity, nationhood, fate, and repression," writes Acquarello.

"It was over 36 years ago, in Cannes, that I first encountered the singular cinema of Pere Portabella, a revelation that came via his second feature, Vampir-Cuadecuc." An introduction to the work of a filmmaker all but unknown in the US from Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Kevin Lee on By the Bluest of Seas: "The crowning achievement in the mercurial career of Soviet director Boris Barnet, this simple story of a love triangle between two shipwrecked sailors and the beach blonde darling of a fishing village exemplifies a kind of film that could only have been made at the dawn of the talkies, when cinema had to rediscover its vision at the same time that it discovered its voice."

Scott Feinberg gets Baz Luhrmann to answer a set of "big questions" about Australia.

Also in the Los Angeles Times: "Joe Hyams, a former Hollywood columnist and bestselling author of books ranging from biographies of Humphrey Bogart and James Dean to a popular tome on Eastern philosophy, has died," reports Dennis McLellan. "He was 85."

"Seven years ago I watched the Quay brother's first feature length film, Institute Benjamenta at 5AM before I headed off to a day of my Junior year of high school," writes Magick Mike. "I thought it was perfect then. Last night, seeing the film for probably the 10th time, I still think it is."

At Roger Ebert's place, Virginia Madsen looks back on playing the Dangerous Woman in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion.

"Sexy is generally not a word associated with the collaboration of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, who have undeserved reputations as prim and wooden, respectively," writes Saul Austerlitz at Moving Image Source. "Nonetheless, their movies from the late 1950s and early 1960s - with suggestive titles like Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back - are reminders of the charm and resourcefulness of the comedies of the late studio era. Day and Hudson were a midcentury-modern Hepburn and Tracy, enjoying the thrill of the chase, and the battle of wits, more than the comfort of being happily settled."

"China's leading lady Gong Li, best known in Britain for her role in Memoirs of a Geisha, is being accused of treason by her irate countrymen for becoming a Singaporean citizen," reports Clifford Coonan for the Independent.

The New York Observer's Sara Vilkomerson previews "the 12 must-sees" of the holiday season, while Christopher Rosen's already looking ahead to 2009.

Nathaniel R lists "Ten Reasons Why Velvet Goldmine Trumps I'm Not There."

For Wired, Brian X Chen lists "Six Real Gadgets Minority Report Predicted Correctly."

"Semantic tagging and the tracking of user behavior for the future implementation of an 'intelligent web' were the two big take-aways from this month's Web 3.0 conference in Santa Clara." A report - and a primer - from Hannah Eaves at SF360.

"No matter what metric you choose, aXXo is BitTorrent's biggest name," writes Josh Levin in Slate. "The editor of the blog TorrentFreak, a 28-year-old from the Netherlands who goes by the nom de Web Ernesto, says that his weekly chart of the 10 most pirated films on BitTorrent is essentially a compilation of aXXo's latest releases."

New blog on the block: The Rocchi Report.

Online listening tip. "Film Comment's Evan Davis talks with the Film Society's own Kent Jones about the legacy of Manny Farber."

Online viewing tip #1. FilmCatcher interviews Dennis Hopper.

Online viewing tip #2. Hillman Curtis's Circles, via Coudal Partners. They've also done a commercial for David Byrne and Brian Eno's Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

Online viewing tip #3. Screengrab's Leonard Pierce has John Belushi's screen test for Saturday Night Live.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Karsten Meinich falls in love with London all over again.

Online viewing tips, round 2. Catherine Grant presents a guide to free (and legal) films immediately available.

Online viewing tips, round 3. The Guardian has "three exclusive clips from the UK [Dark Knight] DVD of [Christopher] Nolan and his cast talking about Batman, the Joker and Harvey Dent, Gotham's crusading district attorney." Also, Laura Barnett has the Hours' video for "See the Light," starring Sienna Miller and art directed by Damien Hirst, and Jason Solomons talks with Terence Davies.

Online viewing tips, round 4. Sea Orchestra, a commercial for United Airlines, and it's making of, via Jason Kottke.

Online viewing tips, round 5. Architekturclips, via Architecture in Berlin.

Posted by dwhudson at November 12, 2008 3:13 PM