Shorts, 11/24.

"This week, immersed in the world's leading documentary film festival, I am reminded how important docs are to me and pondering how that passion emerged." Along with a big IDFA , Eugene Hernandez sends a list of "A Dozen Must See Docs" into indieWIRE.

"Auteurism had Andrew Sarris. Abstract expressionism had Clement Greenberg. Punk rock had Lester Bangs. Where is the equivalent voice for today's documentary scene?" Thom Powers has a few ideas as to where they might yet be found - and offers a "few words of advice" to those who might step into the void.

The Guardian's Danny Leigh has decided "that if a film has any aspiration at all to being 'punk' then it cannot be about a band - any more than surrealist cinema can be represented only by biopics of Dalí and Breton."

Frank DiGiacomo in Vanity Fair:

Written and directed by Darnell Martin (I Like It Like That, Their Eyes Were Watching God) and produced by the film division of record label Sony BMG, Cadillac Records is actually one of two movies filmed this year that depict the rise of the Chicago blues and its musical spawn—rock 'n' roll and soul—via the lives and loves of the black artists and white record men at one of the most innovative and influential independent labels in modern music history: Chicago-based Chess Records, home to not only [Chuck] Berry but also Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James, Bo Diddley, Little Walter and dozens more. The second film, tentatively titled Chess, is directed by Jerry Zaks, best known for his Tony-winning work on Broadway (House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation), and though the films cover overlapping territory, Cadillac Records can claim bigger star power. In addition to Mos Def, the picture stars Beyoncé Knowles, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody and Emmanuelle Chriqui. (The cast of Chess includes Alessandro Nivola and Robert Randolph.)

Related: Logan Hill profiles Jeffrey Wright for New York.

Tatiana Siegel reports that George Clooney and Vera Farmiga have signed on to Jason Reitman's next film, Up in the Air, based on Walter Kirn's novel

Also in Variety: "Universal is bringing one of France's most iconic singer-songwriters to the big screen with Serge Gainsbourg (vie heroique)," reports Ali Jaafar. "Project will be the debut feature for helmer Joann Sfar, a celebrated graphic novelist. Eric Elmosnino has been tapped to play the chanson, as famous for his distinctly European lifestyle and glamorous lovers, who included Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, as he was for penning such hits as 'Je t'aime... moi non plus.'"

Billy Elliot: The Musical opened a little over a week ago and director Stephen Daldry was readying tweaks for US audiences while completing work on The Reader. How did he do it? John Horn reports in the Los Angeles Times: "Daldry would cut the film from 7 am to 1 pm, rehearse the musical from 1 pm until 5 pm, grab a couple more editing hours before his 8 pm curtain, and then do the same thing all over again the next day."

"It's often tough to watch Wendy and Lucy without thinking about [Heath] Ledger, especially since the melancholy film is about losing your best friend," writes Ramin Setoodeh in Newsweek. "Celebrity has obviously colored an actor's art from the beginning of the Hollywood star system, but it's different now, too. For all we heard about, say, Elizabeth Taylor's love life, we never saw daily, even hourly, pictures of Liz and their child just after her husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane crash. 'It's such a funny line to walk as an actor,' [Michelle] Williams says. There's some great quote I think Dustin Hoffman gave when he was doing The Graduate: "The more you know about me, the harder my job is."'"

For Flavorwire, Ben Hart talks with Aasif Mandvi - yes, that guy from the Daily Show - who's co-written and stars in 7 to the Palace, and the film's director, David Kaplan.

Jürgen Fauth: "Awards screeners are starting to come in hard & fast now, so here's a hectic (and almost certainly incomplete) roundup of movies I've watched these last few weeks."

Mike Everleth, working on a series about the underground film scene in the 70s, puts together "a collection of rough data of films, filmmakers and significant events happening in 1972."

That same year, Henry Porter had a "brush with what was certainly part of the delinquent Baader Meinhof cousinhood," and it's kind of a fun story. As for The Baader Meinhof Complex, it "is said to be part of an attempt by Germans to demystify the trauma of their recent history, but in fact the film does almost nothing to show why they killed more than 30 people, nor does it help with any explanation of fanaticism in general."

Also in the Observer, Carole Cadwalladr has a long talk with Mickey Rourke about The Wrestler and his "bracing 15 years in the wilderness," while Vanessa Thorpe profiles Angelina Jolie.

"The Talented Mr Ripley by way of Somerset Maugham, Henry May Long is a drama about two men, Henry May and Henry Long, set in the upper crust and under belly of 1887 New York City.... Randall Sharp, the film's writer and director, had been directing theater for 26 years when she decided to make the film. She runs, along with the co-star and producer of the film Brian Barnhart, the Axis Company in New York's West Village." And Alicia Van Couvering talks with her for Filmmaker.

Josef Braun talks with Jirí Menzel about I Served the King of England.

The Boston Globe's Michael Paulson is "intrigued by [Danny] Boyle's dance with faith in film." So he calls up the director to talk about Slumdog Millionaire specifically. Related: Todd Martens talks with MIA for the Los Angeles Times.

Shawn Levy elucidates the difference between Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

"Will latter-day noiristas ever come to embrace [Ross] Hunter's signature Fashion Noir?" wonders John McElwee. "He had a determinedly superficial concept of what movies should be.... His was the sensibility of a movie fan turned loose to make the sort of movies other fans dreamed of seeing."

Dan North: "I wouldn't want to suggest that [Chantal Akerman's] News from Home 'simulates' alienation rather than formalises its effects... Alienation, in the form of a calm detachment, may be one of the affective states incited by the film, but it also builds up a critique of the very possibility of direct, autobiographical communication."

"The folks currently backing 3-D insist things will be different this time around, that improved digital technology on both the production and projection ends will make 3-D stick," writes Bruce Handy in the New York Times. "Nevertheless, there's a cautionary tale lying in the historical record, which shows just how meteoric, how stunningly Sarah Palin-like, was 3-D's original rise. And fall."

Quoting Olghina di Robilant, Peter Popham reports that many Romans didn't take kindly to La Dolce Vita when it premiered 50 years ago: "We were furious with him because it wasn't a decadent city. Fellini, who comes from Rimini, based the film on gossip. He wasn't yet part of the city's life - he was like a maid looking through the keyhole." Also in the Independent: James Mottram interviews Paul Bettany.

Call for submissions. "To coincide with recent remarks made by Béla Tarr, that his next film may be his last, Unspoken Cinema Journal is delighted to dedicate its inaugural issue to the uncompromising Hungarian master."

Online listening tip #1. IFC's Matt Singer and Alison Willmore discuss "the things this year that have made us feel grateful, from the beleaguered but always passionate critical community to a fantastic DVD release and an actor whose recent work continues to surprise and impress us."

Online listening tip #2. Ed Champion interviews Alex Beckstead, who's produced and directed Paperback Dreams, "the story of two landmark independent bookstores and their struggle to survive."

Online viewing tip #1. At the DVblog, A Man & A Woman from "from the very funny, very talented Kelly Mark."

Online viewing tip #2. Julian Sancton's been enjoying the Monty Python channel at YouTube and writes it up for VF Daily.

Online viewing tips. From the filmlinc blog: "'I'm going to go baste the turkey and hide the knives' - 10 cinematic signs your family is not that dysfunctional."

Online listening and viewing tips. Another big roundup from Catherine Grant: "Online Film Audio-Commentaries and Video Essays of Note."

Posted by dwhudson at November 24, 2008 2:59 PM