Shorts, 11/19.

"After winning the grand prize at the Montreal World Film Festival and the bid to become Japan's submission to the best foreign film category in the Oscars, Okuribito [Departures] is fulfilling the promises of its ad copy to become the best film of the year." Marie Iida at Néojaponisme, via Jason Gray.

"I can't think of one book or article by any American or English academic film writer of the last 25 years that I've read and would re-read today," AS Hamrah tells Ricky D'Ambrose in the Tisch Film Review. "If a lot of film critics write like grad students auditioning for trade papers, a lot of academics write like technical writers who love gossip columns." Via the cinetrix.

"Through countless cinematic detours in his enormous body of critical theory he has become one of the sharpest, most engaged writers on movies we have, so maybe it's no accident that the theoretical tool he employs with relentless perfectionism is the very same tool most often used by the crack screenwriter: the good old-fashioned reversal." Josef Braun opens a review of Violence: "Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek writes both dynamically and profusely, and he's never met an assumption he didn't feel the urge to overturn, a paradox he didn't desire to give a thorough workout. He isn't a shrewd contrarian so much as an intellectual showman - and I say this with the deepest admiration." Related: Adam Kirsch's fierce dressing down in the New Republic; Zizek in the London Review of Books on Obama and the financial meltdown.

IndieWIRE's Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez report on the launch of the IFC Media Project, a six-part series created by producer Meghan O'Hara (Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko).

At the OUPblog, Thomas Hischak, author of the Oxford Companion to the American Musical notes the similarities between the High School Musical series and "the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland 'let's put on a show' Hollywood musicals of the 1940s" and observes that "what is most amazing about the High School Musicals is that young audiences do not laugh at this wholesome and unrealistic view of high school; they embrace it. It is the ultimate fantasy for a generation too embarrassed to admit they still like all the other Disney fantasies that they grew up with."

"Directed by the venerable Christian-Jaque, Fanfan La Tulipe plays like an extension of its protagonist's personality. It's so pleased with its own ability to be charming that all other concerns fall away," writes Keith Phipps at the AV Club. "Christian-Jaque became a favorite target of the French New Wave, perhaps in part because of that urge to please without any hidden agenda. Still, it seems unfair to pick on a movie with no greater ambition than entertainment, when it makes good on that ambition so thoroughly."

"The film's rude asides about product placement and the profit margins of scandal ('Especially in America!') give [Lola Montès] continued currency, but it's Ophüls's remarkable use of the still nascent CinemaScope technology that makes the restoration a must for the big screen," writes Max Goldberg in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. More from Jonathan Kiefer and Ryland Walker Knight.

Derek Jarman's Blue "defies critical judgement as much as it does rigorous analysis," writes Andrew Schenker; "as a final testament, it confirms for all time the joys of artistic invention; as a work of cinema, it is thrillingly, maddeningly sui generis."

For the Chicago Tribune, Sara Olkon catches up with the stars of the 1994 doc Hoop Dreams: "[William] Gates, the reserved one, has become an authoritative force who leads a church in the Cabrini area. He is married with four kids. [Arthur] Agee, a spirited charmer, doesn't have a regular job but is launching a line of Hoop Dreams apparel. He has five kids by five different women." Via Jason Kottke.

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir looks over the shortlist of contenders for the Documentary Feature Academy Awards and finds "the same old docu-Oscar problem: It might be a marginally stronger list than last year's, but there's still way too much cinematically dubious spinach, and too many excellent films got left behind." More from AJ Schnack: "There will be no outraged commentary this year." Part 2.

Last month, Margaret Brown took The Order of Myths on a whirlwind 9-day tour. All these wonderful things runs the first part of her diary.

"Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, currently playing for however long it lasts at the Fox Theater in downtown Portland, is the most depressing movie ever made," alerts DK Holm for the Vancouver Voice. "As long as you know that going in, you might actually enjoy the experience."

"A lot of the time, movies are our escape from the world, but good movies - or, rather, great movies - don't offer us escape from the world but rather new perspectives on it," writes James Rocchi. "So, in the hue and cry after Prop 8 passed, I found myself revisiting Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes's 2002 film that not only looks like a 1950's Douglas Sirk melodrama but also, more importantly looks at 1950's film, and the 1950's, with an unflinching, unblinking and clear eye."

"Leaving aside the many meretricious or fanciful biopics of composers (I exempt Straub-Huillet's The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, 1968) or films about musicians, there have been few instances of celluloid characters actually listening to classical music," blogs Ronald Bergan for the Guardian. "Unfortunately, most of these efforts have been less than successful."

Kevin Kelly talks with Angus MacLean, who's directed BURN•E, a short included as an extra on the WALL•E DVD. Also at the SpoutBlog, a conversation with Danny Ledonne about Playing Columbine: A True Story of Video Game Controversy; and Christopher Campbell lists "10 Tips for the Unemployed from 1930s Movies."

"[A]cross the world's second biggest economy, bookstores from Hiroshima to Hokkaido are preparing for what they expect to be the publishing phenomenon of the year: Das Kapital - the manga version." Leo Lewis reports for the London Times.

Thomas Kilpper is calling for a lighthouse for Lampedusa.

Competition: "Ctrl.Alt.Shift challenges young filmmakers to tackle poverty and global injustice issues for the chance to work with the likes of Noel Clarke, Shynola and Saam Farahmand.

Call for participation: "Almaz isn't just a film - it's also an exploration of a new way of making films."

Online browsing tip #1. "Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."

Online browsing tip #2. Visual Movie Reviews via Jason Kottke.

Online listening tip. Nathan Lee talks with David Lynch about that Lime Green Set.

Online viewing tip #1. Scott Kirsner talks about "Hollywood's love-hate relationship with new technologies" at Google HQ.

Online viewing tip #2. The trailer for Soft Skull Press's new edition of The Wizard of Oz, illustrated by Graham Rawle.

Online viewing tips, round 1. The DVblog presents a "sampling of videos from Les Filmistes Associés, a group of French filmmakers who create short films on a different theme each month."

Online viewing tips, round 2. Brandon Soderberg's "Music Video Round-Up" at the House Next Door.

Posted by dwhudson at November 19, 2008 2:24 PM