Shorts, 12/1.

Jason Gray caught Sono Sion's "4-hour opus" Love Exposure at Tokyo Filmex and finds it to be "a twistedly ambitious, gonzo indie epic. After the last frame of film, two words came to mind - words that come only after movies with this much spirit... Bow down." And he points to Edmund Yeo's take: "Not a flawless masterpiece, but still an immensely unique experience, and a really good and entertaining film."

"I've been playing around with the not entirely reputable strand of realism in the Hollywood cycle of late 40s police procedurals marketed as 'semi-documentaries,'" writes Max Goldberg, "so in turning back to the Italian classics for an abbreviated piece I wrote for the Guardian I was still carrying some residual queasiness about an essentialist usage of 'realism.' As soon as realism is as the expense of something else, after all, it takes on an ideological shade."

"The science that ought to be applied to cinema today is no longer psychoanalysis or semiotics but the study of movie-populations. What's needed is a demography of filmed beings." Steve Erickson posts Laurent Kretzschmar's translation of a 1988 essay by Serge Daney.

For SF360, Michael Fox talks with Michael Sragow about his book coming out on December 9, Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master.

"For a while, in the first half of the 20th century, it seemed the Bennetts might become a true acting dynasty," writes the Siren. "As Brian Kellow details in his fine book, The Bennetts: An Acting Family, it didn't work out that way."

"Mickey Rourke, Academy Award winner?" A profile from Pat Jordan for the New York Times Magazine, where Deborah Solomon has a few questions for Kelly Reichardt about Wendy and Lucy.

In the paper, Michael Cieply reports on the Academy's new admissions policy, which is "changing the makeup of the academy in ways that were not entirely expected, tilting it away from the Hollywood regulars and shoo-ins who once filled its actor-rich ranks and toward a more international and indie-film membership." And meanwhile, The Carpetbagger is off to the races.

IndieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez and Peter Knegt chat about this year's awards season: "Topics for this installment include a look at the upcoming Gotham Independent Film Awards, the box office performances of Milk and Slumdog Millionaire, as well as discussion surrounding our recent viewings of Revolutionary Road and The Reader." Peter Knegt also has the nominations for the International Press Academy's Satellite Awards; plus: The International Animated Film Society has announced its nominations for this year's Annie Awards.

Maureen Dowd profiles Tina Fey for the cover of the January issue of Vanity Fair. The story appears, as everyone's noting, on the same day that Nancy Franklin's not-so-enthusiastic assessment of 30 Rock has.

The Observer's Philip French's latest "screen legend" is Margaret Lockwood; he's also got a note on "two fascinating half-hour films" Hitchcock made for the Ministry of Information in London in 1944.

In the Independent, James Mottram talks with William Friedkin about The French Connection's influence on TV shows such as The Wire. Also: Geoffrey Macnab on North Face and German mountain films in general and Andrew Johnson on "Hollywood and the Holocaust."

"Let's make a documentary - then kill each other." George Rush at SF360.

Rex Sorgatz points to a handful of takes on Britney: For the Record.

The Tisch Film Review is assembling a new staff of writers and editors for the year and accepting applications through December 15. Applicants may contact tischfilmreviewtfr@gmail.com.

Posted by dwhudson at December 1, 2008 2:23 PM