Fests and events, 11/18.

Jerry Lewis's "great originality as a filmmaker lies in his art of multiplying segmentation or segmenting multiplicity so as to produce a spiraling disorder that leads miraculously to a reassertion of order (as in the endings of The Family Jewels, Which Way to the Front?, and Cracking Up [1983]). His films take place in zones of indeterminacy and combinatorial freedom." Just one of the many observations in Chris Fujiwara's piece for Moving Image Source adapted in part from his forthcoming book on Lewis - who will be talking with Peter Bogdanovich on stage at the Times Center in Manhattan on Saturday, an event sponsored by the Museum for the Moving Image.

"In his overlapping careers as a historian, a curator, a teacher and a critic, Scott MacDonald has arguably done more than anyone to champion the American experimental cinema," writes Michael Fox, introducing his interview at SF360: "MacDonald will introduce a quartet of shows honoring the films and makers of Canyon Cinema beginning Friday and Saturday, November 21 and 22, at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center, followed by a San Francisco Cinematheque show Sunday, November 23, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and a Pacific Film Archive program Tuesday, November 25."

"Noel Lawrence, formerly of San Francisco's Other Cinema, is holding two new screenings in Los Angeles this week," notes Mike Everleth, who's got all the details on the new edition of Experiments in Terror (tomorrow) and an evening of work by JX Williams (Saturday).

"Nursery University the new documentary about the cutthroat, only-in-New-York, ritualized frenzy involved in getting 2- and 3-year-olds into nursery school, had its New York City premiere before a packed audience on Saturday evening as part of the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival at the American Museum of Natural History," writes Sewell Chan in the New York Times' City Room. "As Susan Dominus wrote in her Big City column last week, the film depicts New York City parents as a 'fascinating anthropological subculture,' fitting for a festival that included films about the Kwakwaka'wakw people of British Columbia and the Nangalala people of Australia's Northern Territory."

The Guardian's Ben Walters reports on Lebowski Fest in New York; plus, photos from Kentucky.

Posted by dwhudson at November 18, 2008 10:13 AM