Shorts, 11/14.

"Tom Graeff managed to helm only one feature film from immaterial idea to general release," writes Ron Garmon in a cover story for LA CityBeat. "Out of the hundreds of low-budget science fiction movies released in America during the early Cold War, Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) is one of a relative handful with any kind of life outside period camp or low-rent irony." Documentary filmmaker Jim Tushinski is working on a biography and has issued a call for "any information, correspondence, memorabilia, tips, or suggestions that you think Jim should know about": "Low-budget auteur, gay liberation pioneer, eccentric rabble rouser, religious fanatic sent to save the world - Tom Graeff was all of these. Unknown in his own lifetime and largely forgotten today, Graeff's fascinating, doomed journey is the ultimate Hollywood story - filled with ambition, delusion, sex, scandal, hope and failure."

Glenn Kenny previews what looks like a very strong contender for DVD release of the year, Murnau, Borzage and Fox, a 12-disc box set. Also: "For all their differences, Day For Night and Irma Vep make an exemplary double bill."

"After a constructive screaming match, the sequence was deleted," recalls Frederic Raphael in his review of Ever, Dirk: The Bogart Letters for the Times Literary Supplement. The film at hand is Darling, which, of course, Raphael wrote: "There is nothing unusual about such cosmetic excision; editing is of the essence of film. Dirk's own life was no less prudently tailored; the scissors were applied to whatever might fail to be fetching. In his letters, spasms of conceit were trimmed with comely self-mockery, self-pity served with a twist. That most of them were addressed to ladies suggests that the sex was his preferred constituency, provided that it remained at a remove."

In Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando, Stefan Kanfer "portrays Brando as a man at war with himself: self-loathing, self-destructive and self-sabotaging," writes for Time.

"Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman's meditation on (amongst other things) death, failure, despair, heartache, the dualism of art and life, and the process of individuation is nothing short of a masterpiece. With traces of Jungian and Buddhist philosophy throughout, it's clearly a deeply personal, subjective work that somehow maintains a healthy objectivity, and avoids the expected narcissism from a work of this nature." Andrew Grant opens a two-part investigation.

Meanwhile, Kimberley Jones talks with Kaufman. Also in the Austin Chronicle: "Try, if you can, to imagine a world in which three of the silver screen's most iconic ingenues - silent siren Louise Brooks, 40s femme Veronica Lake, and fanboy B-goddess Sandahl Bergman - never existed." Marc Savlov: "A nightmare scenario, right? (And curious, isn't it, that all three came into existence on the same day - Nov 14?)"

"David O Russell is in talks to direct Matthew McConaughey in The Grackle, a raucous comedy for New Line," reports Variety's Michael Fleming.

More up-n-coming news:

• Steven Zeitchik has news on the doc Michael Moore's working on: "Instead of foreign policy, the film's focus now is more on the global financial crisis and the US economy."

• Also in the Hollywood Reporter, Etan Vlessing: "Malcolm McDowell, Jessica Pare and Dave Foley have joined the cast for the Canadian vampire horror-comedy Suck, from writer-director Rob Stefaniuk. The indie film about rock 'n' roll wannabes in search of fame and vampires also stars rockers Moby, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins and Carol Pope."

• "Clint Eastwood is in talks to direct the supernatural thriller Hereafter for DreamWorks," reports Variety's Tatiana Siegel. And the screenplay's by Peter Morgan. Recent interviews with Eastwood: John Hiscock (Telegraph) and Kevin Maher (London Times).

• Fleming asks Chuck Klosterman about the adaptation in the works of his Killing Yourself to Live: "The idea is to do a comedic road movie heavily based in rock 'n' roll."

• And: Marc Forster will direct an adaptation of Max Brooks's bestselling zombie tale World War Z.

"A documentary, more than two years in the making, about President-elect Barack Obama's campaign is gathering significant interest from international distributors just days after being picked up in the United States by HBO," reports Brian Stelter. "A team of directors and editors backed by the actor Edward Norton is furiously editing the untitled project."

Also in the New York Times:

• Errol Morris on truth, illusion, faith and all that.

• Nathan Lee: "In Dinner With the President: A Nation's Journey the filmmakers Sabiha Sumar and Sachithanandam Sathananthan go in search of nothing less than the meaning of democracy in Pakistan. That's an impossibly large subject for a documentary, but the movie finds a number of ways to make small, engaging points on the political evolution of Pakistan." More from Stephen Garrett (Time Out New York) and Vadim Rizov (Voice)

• "How About You, directed by Anthony Byrne from Jean Pasley's screen adaptation of a short story by Maeve Binchy, belongs to the sentimental genre of post-Terence Rattigan white-glove British dramas like Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont and Ladies in Lavender," writes Stephen Holden. "If those two predecessors have a little more substance than How About You, all three appeal to the delicate palates of an audience that craves the movie equivalent of tea and biscuits: stiff upper lips conceal hearts of gold, and all psychological conflicts are resolved with tearful confessions of vulnerability." More from Nick McCarthy (L Magazine), Noel Murray (AV Club), Ella Taylor (Voice), Micah Towery (Slant) and James Van Maanen.

• "The Dukes wants to be the Big Deal on Madonna Street of doo-wop nostalgia, Italian-American division," writes Stephen Holden. "As this shambling, cornball heist comedy - in which the members of a one-hit-wonder vocal group from the early 60s conspire in 2007 to rob the gold from the safe in a dental laboratory - plods along in its sloppy, joshing way, it tastes like pasta sauce that has sat on the shelf long after the expiration date on the can." More from Nick Pinkerton (Voice), Nick Schager (Slant) and James Yu (L Magazine). And IndieWIRE interviews director Robert Davi; so does Bilge Ebiri for New York.

• "Not even the august presence of Maximilian Schell can dispel the odor of fusty smut that clings to House of the Sleeping Beauties, a clammy meditation on sex, death and the endless fascination of unclothed innocence," writes Jeannette Catsoulis. More from Bryant Frazer, Kristi Mitsuda (indieWIRE), Vadim Rizov (Voice), Nick Schager (Cinematical) and Andrew Schenker (Slant). And indieWIRE interviews director Vadim Glowna.

• "The kitchen-sink drama has fallen out of favor lately, elbowed aside by flashier fare," writes Jeannette Catsoulis. "One welcome corrective to this trend is Eden, a picture so modest and minor-key that the emotional bruise it leaves may take days to develop."

• Neil Genzlinger: "War Child, a documentary about the hip-hop artist Emmanuel Jal, is a bit ragged and repetitive, but certainly this young man's life is amazing proof that one person really can make a difference." More from Aaron Hillis (Voice).

• "Discredited by the medical establishment but passionately defended by its followers, who claim it can cure cancer, the Gerson therapy is based on fundamental principles - eschew meat and processed foods - that are scarcely provocative in this age of slow-food chic," writes Nathan Lee. "Nor would they seem to warrant a feature-length infomercial as rhetorically saccharine as The Beautiful Truth." More from Tim Grierson (Voice).

• Oh, and that whole business about Sarah Palin thinking Africa's a country rather than a continent? A hoax. And Fox News, MSMNC, the New Republic and the Los Angeles Times were all taken in. The "leak" came from McCain "advisor" Martin Eisenstadt, who is, in fact, a fictional character created by filmmaker Eitan Gorlin and Slamdance co-founder Dan Mirvish. Richard Pérez-Peña reports; and the SpoutBlog's Karina Longworth comments.

Michael Koresky on Yair Hochner's new film: "Antarctica is unapologetically horny, even as it wears its romanticism on its sleeve." Also at indieWIRE's Brian Brooks profiles Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black; plus, an interview with On Broadway director Dave McLaughlin and producer Lance Greene. And Eugene Hernandez and Peter Knegt discuss this year's awards contenders.

"Despite an ironclad studio embargo threatening to turn all violators into backwards-aging old-man babies, reviews for Sunday's first-ever screening of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button have started to appear on blogs," notes Lane Brown at Vulture. "How are they? Mixed!"

"Joshua Brown's debut narrative feature, Altamont Now, is one of my favorite films of the year," writes Mike Everleth, introducing his interview. "It's an hilarious and exhilarating movie about a young punk rock superstar who, along with his poseur cronies, drops out of society to take over an abandoned nuclear missile silo and launch a youth apocalypse."

David Bordwell considers the usefulness of Charles Barr's notion of "gradation of emphasis."

"[I]t's not far-fetched for a movie lover to think that Obama's rise was prepared—if not predicted—by Soul Man." Armond White argues the case in the New York Press. Nathan Lee comments.

FilmInFocus opens a package on another "Movie City": Washington DC.

"[T]he story of the CIA's involvement in Hollywood is a tale of deception and subversion that would seem improbable if it were put on screen," writes Matthew Alford. "[A]ltering scripts, financing films, suppressing the truth - it's worrying enough. But there are cases where some believe the CIA's activities in Hollywood have gone further - far enough, in fact, to be the stuff of movies." Did they off a screenwriter? Anyway, also in the Guardian, David Thomson on Julianne Moore and Ryan Gilbey interviews Fernando Meirelles; so, too, does Rebecca Davies for the New Statesman.

"To truly understand The Quiet Man - its structure, its world, and its appeal - it is important to understand how John Ford created a time out of time, his own Brigadoon," argues Marilyn Ferdinand.

"Kemal Atatürk: a drunkard and bon vivant?" asks Daniel Steinvorth in Spiegel Online. "To mark the 70th anniversary of the death of the founder of modern Turkey, [Mustafa] reveals some of the more profane traits of the national hero - enraging devout Kemalists and sparking suspicion of an conspiracy plot from abroad."

For the Philadelphia City Paper, Shaun Brady talks with graphic artist Charles Burns about Fear(s) of the Dark.

Ken Russell lists his "ten formative influences" in the London Times.

James Mottram talks with Philip Seymour Hoffman for the Independent.

Films in Review runs Oscar A Rimoldi's 1985 piece on John Garfield.

"Watching The Godfather today is like watching Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936) in 1972." Time's passing is weirding out Jason Kottke.

At the SpoutBlog, Karina Longworth talks with Todd Sklar about Range Life, "which is shepherding four truly independent films to 20+ cities in North America."

What are "cine-scabs"? "[M]ovies or movie scenes that get on your nerves, that annoy, grate, embarrass... but which you nonetheless watch and watch again, nursing your conflicted emotions as you would a Château Pétrus you bought with your own money or scratching at them as you would the crust on an old wound," explains Richard Harland Smith. "Everyone has their own cine-scabs and here are my picks..."

Is it too early to get the year-end lists rolling? Not for the New Statesman, which has asked a slew of critics to nominate the bests books of 2008.

"Five years ago, we named 'Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,' by Gay Talese, the greatest story Esquire every published. Here, as we close out our 75th anniversary celebration, are the top seven, with several republished online in their entirety for the first time ever."

"Stanislaw Rozewicz, film director, producer and mentor to a generation of Polish filmmakers, died Nov 9 in Warsaw," reports Michal Chacinski in Variety. "He was 84.... In his quiet, coldly poetic films, he showed soldiers as ordinary men willing to perform their duties simply because it is their job, while at the same time stressing how unprepared they were for the atrocities and depravation war brought. This fit into the larger topic of his films - the observation of how men behave when facing evil and the question of how film can present the reality of moral choices without resorting to artificial overdramatization."

Online listening tip. Kent Jones and Phillip Lopate discuss Manny Farber on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Online viewing tip #1. At New York, Bilge Ebiri's got Ilya Chaiken's Blackout.

Online viewing tip #2. Thomas Groh has the Fine Brothers spoiling 100 movies in less than four minutes. Amusingly. You've been warned.

Online viewing tip #3. At Shooting Down Pictures, Jonathan Rosenbaum compares John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright to Carl Dreyer's Gertrud.

Posted by dwhudson at November 14, 2008 1:53 PM