Shorts, fests, etc, 11/16.

David George Menard "hypothesizes that Hitchcock's formal method is constituted of a distinctive worldview that reflects a uniquely chaotic universe, one based on a romantic ideal that somehow gets distorted." And you'll also want to scroll down to the bottom of that page and read "About David George Menard."

Also in the new issue of Offscreen: Editor Donato Totaro on Paz Encina's Paraguayan Hammock, Alessandra M Pires on Patrice Chéreau's Gabrielle and Daniel Garrett on Tarsem's The Fall.

Michael J Anderson and Lisa K Broad on Nathaniel Dorsky: "This is not cinema as painting but cinema as itself in the truest sense - a cinematic flatness."

The Chicago Reader's JR Jones explains the No Milk for Cinemark! campaign.

"Film Independent, under scrutiny for the personal financial contributions of LA Film Festival director Rich Raddon in support of California's gay marriage ban (Prop 8), has issued a statement," and Michael Jones has it; David Poland tells the story behind it.

"Compare the balance of Twilight Zone eeriness, and sweet visual palette in Im Pil-Sung's Hansel & Gretel to the simple vulgarity of Terry Gilliam's Tideland (out of Canada), or the handsome flatness of Krabat (out of Germany) to see what sort a re-envisioning of a Grimm tale is possible," writes Kurt Halfyard at Twitch. "I cannot call Hansel & Gretel a perfect film. Far from it. There are some major stutters resulting from questionable pacing and structural choices. Yet handsome production design, talented children actors and a willingness to take the story to some dark places make the lengthy running time and directorial excess well worth the trip."

"It may seem like a cheat - or inevitable - that the heroes of the first mainstream Bollywood movie to feature gay characters are just pretending, but the decent-hearted comedy Dostana deserves credit," writes Rachel Saltz. "It irreverently normalizes a topic that has been virtually absent from screens in India (where gay sex is still technically illegal), and does so using contemporary Bollywood's best not-so-secret weapon: star power. Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham are the unembarrassed A-listers who play Sameer and Kunal, a nurse and photographer thrown together by real estate lust." Related: "[P]revious attempts to portray homosexuality in Indian cinema have faced protests, not from the censors but mainly from rightwing Hindu fundamentalists," reports Anil Sinanan in the London Times.

Also in the New York Times: "In a way," writes Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times, "the extremely peculiar film series called Punk 'n' Pie, which begins Friday at BAMcinématek in Brooklyn, demonstrates pretty conclusively that punk remains, three decades later, defiantly resistant to definition, still pogoing so furiously that the camera can't quite keep it in focus." Related: Stuart Husband talks with Malcolm McLaren for the Observer.

"Whether he's seen as the man who drove Old Dixie down or an infallible Great White Father, the strong opinions people have about Abraham Lincoln only intensify when his facsimile appears in the flesh," writes Jim Ridley in the Nashville Scene. "In the lighthearted documentary Being Lincoln: Men With Hats, which screens at the Belcourt next Wednesday - the 145th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address - [Elvis] Wilson delves into a nationwide subculture of men who dress, re-create and comport themselves at public appearances as Lincoln."

"These are heady times for French film, which seems finally to have found a new voice after many years spent emerging from the long shadows of the Nouvelle Vague and battling the influence of Hollywood," writes the Observer's Jason Solomons. "French films are taking center stage around the world and the names of French directors are once again rolling off the tongues of cinephiles: [Laurent] Cantet, Abdellatif Kechiche, Olivier Assayas, Agnès Jaoui. Is this the start of a new New Wave?"

Also in the Observer, Philip French's latest "screen legend": Trevor Howard.

"Contrary to popular belief, the German Film Star referred to in the song is not Klaus Kinski, Curd Jürgens, Jürgen Prochnow or even Marlene Dietrich." The story behind the tune.

"After the big screen entertainment of Heaven's Door last week, I suggested Tom Mes have his first pink cinemagoing experience," recalls Jason Gray. "And so, a few nights ago we met on Ikebukuro's west side and headed for the CineRoman along the tracks (see my August 5th entry)."

Thom Ryan comes across an intriguing story that might have appeared in the New York Re-Inquirer on December 21, 1951.

"HBO is developing an untitled film about the life of Katharine Graham, who took the reins of the Washington Post and led the paper during the Watergate investigation that brought down the Nixon administration," reports Variety's Michael Fleming. "Joan Didion is writing the script, and Laura Linney is circling the project to potentially play Graham."

FilmInFocus runs an extract from Peter Cowie's 1994 biography of Francis Ford Coppola.

Kimberly Lindbergs: "After watching countless thrillers over the years I'm not often surprised by a movie anymore, but Charles Crichton's exceptional film The Third Secret (1964) really caught me off guard and impressed me with its compelling storyline and dramatic cinematography."

And: "If you live in New York or will be visiting the area on November 25th, you won't want to miss the US Premiere of the French pop musical spectacular, Les Idoles (1968). Cinebeats has teamed up with New York's Film Society at Lincoln Center and together we're offering one lucky reader a FREE pair of tickets to see the film on November 25th and attend the fabulous yé-yé afterparty where DJs J Tripp, Melody Nelson, and the Film Society's own Gabriele Caroti will spin French psychedelic 60s pop."

Paul Matwychuk revisits six films made for less than $30,000 and asks, "Which of these films got the most aesthetic bang for their buck?"

"As more and more economists compare the nation's current financial crisis to the Great Depression of the 1930s, it begs the question - will the movies be as good?" For MSNBC, Alonso Duralde surveys a "Golden Age."

"Made (reluctantly) by RKO and produced (reluctantly) by John Houseman, who had a relationship with [Nicholas] Ray that preceded the director's time in Hollywood, On Dangerous Ground found life with the support of star Robert Ryan and a script Ray wrote with AI Bezzerides, whose novels had earlier served the bases for the films They Drive by Night and Thieves' Highway," writes clydefro (site) at Noir of the Week. "The result was a quintessential Nicholas Ray film, one that allows for playing within the margins while still doing so at his own rhythms. It's structured into two entirely different story segments and comes complete with a bold score by Bernard Herrmann that disorients as much as it thrills."

"John Wayne was always right, Larry Fine was always wrong, and Robert Ryan was always, always troubled," notes Scott Marks in a review of Bad Day at Black Rock.

"Films like Gianni Amelio's acclaimed Lamerica (Italy, 1994) subtly present old and new colonial-type hierarchies and political compromises that affect the lives of the ordinary people who appear as the film's protagonists," writes Dina Iordanova. "The underlying postcolonial dynamism may not be overtly manifest in cinematic texts, yet it can easily be revealed in the process of closer analysis, especially in films like this one, featuring migrants that have been set on the move as a consequence of the radical social shifts of 1989."

"The profound trick of C Karim Chrobog's documentary War Child, which won the Cadillac Award at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, is that by meeting and following Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier turned successful rap artist, the terror and inhumanity of Darfur and Sudan become vividly real in this young man's fascinating, horrifying, tragic, and ultimately inspiring life story," writes Elisabeth Donnelly, introducing her interview with Jal for Tribeca.

The Third Annual Heeb Film Festival happens this coming Saturday and Sunday.

In the Los Angeles Times, John Horn reports on "the high-stakes legal tussle surrounding the movie version of [Watchmen] - a film that holds great creative and financial promise but is now being overshadowed by a bitter copyright-infringement lawsuit that threatens Watchmen's distribution."

In the Independent, Andrew Johnson gets a few quick words with Wayne Kinsey regarding his book Hammer Films: A Life in Pictures.

Online listening tip. Nathan Lee talks with Kent Jones about Manny Farber.

Posted by dwhudson at November 16, 2008 10:18 AM