Shorts, 12/18.

"On 22 December 1933, RKO released Flying Down to Rio and introduced the world to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers," writes David Parkinson in FilmInFocus. "They only danced together for a couple of minutes. But audiences instantly recognized their unique chemistry and, 75 years later, they are still the most iconic dance team in screen history."

Murnau, Borzage and Fox "might be the most lavish, cinema-worshipful video package ever assembled, situating 12 features, two lost-film "reconstructions," and a dissertation's worth of scholarship in the kind of expansive gift case you expect for a champagne cognac," writes Michael Atkinson in Moving Image Source. William Fox "could be said to have passionately conceived, through Murnau, a new American Expressionism, romantic and natural where the German version had been so grim and architectural. For a few years, he succeeded. Murnau may be seen as the presiding seminal force in this scenario, but clearly the hero of the era was Borzage, who took the dreamy, multilayered Sunrise palette and infused it with human complexity and romantic seriousness."

"The rap against Victor Fleming and John Sturges is that they were competent and perhaps even skilled directors who lacked the imagination and grace that elevates craftsmen into artists," writes Michael Fox at SF360. "Michael Sragow's Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master and Glenn Lovell's Escape Artist: The Life and Times of John Sturges, both splendid new biographies by film critics with local ties, expressly aim to reestablish their subjects' reputations. They hit that mark with varying success, but provide so much pleasure for even a casual moviegoer that it scarcely matters."

"It's vexing that Sebastian was yanked from [Michael] Powell's grip, because it would have been his second big collaboration with Leo Marks, who wrote Peeping Tom," writes David Cairns in the Auteurs' Notebook. "In the event, Powell had Marks's sprawling script rewritten by Gerald Vaughan Hughes, before his own ejection from the director's chair. Although producing was not really Powell's forte, he did get the script developed to near-perfection. One of Sebastian's great pleasures is the acreage of skewed dialogue."

Films in Review runs William K Everson's 1974 piece on the film preservation program at 20th Century Fox.

David Bordwell on Ashes of Time Redux: Wong Kar-wai "seems to have taken to heart his central theme of the transient moment, the fact that love can be extinguished at any instant. So why not change your films to match your mood today? Further, like Warhol, he seems to enjoy prodigality for its own sake."

Daniel Frampton, author of Filmosophy, "has also come to be of those (nowadays) very rare authors who have succeeded in founding a significant school of thought," writes Catherine Grant, who presents "some hot, hot, hot filmosophical links."

For the LA Weekly "Holiday Film 2008" package, Scott Foundas interviews Clint Eastwood, who "will allow that, more often than not, those people he chooses to visit are haunted figures with dark and even dangerous pasts, men who have done or witnessed things no man should do or see." Related: Karina Longworth finds Gran Torino to be "most fun when it's working on the level of performance art, and much of the time, it resembles an art school take on an insult comic's one-man show."

Also in LA Weekly:

• As My Name Is Bruce hits the west coast, Luke Y Thompson meets Bruce Campbell. More from Cheryl Eddy in the San Francisco Bay Guardian: [I]t's hard not to see a little bit of Evil Dead's cocky Ash in all of Campbell's roles. Campbell knows this. After two decades, he's used to it." Michael Guillén talks with Campbell, too.

• Chuck Wilson talks with Paul Schrader and Jeff Goldblum about Adam Resurrected. Related: There's a Schrader entry going on at the moment.

• And Ella Taylor talks with Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams about Wendy and Lucy. Reichardt: "Todd [Haynes] and I have this constant conversation about whether my small way of filmmaking is really easier or really harder."

Nikki Finke talks with the new film critic for the Los Angeles Times, Betsy Sharkey: "Maybe it'll be an absolute disaster. But I think I've got a good mind, and I think I know film. In any case, I'm thrilled and could not be happier."

"In the second chapter of his book Gaming: Essays on Logarithmic Culture, NYU Media Studies prof Alexander Galloway tries to trace the transition between the analog cinema of the past and the all-digital cinema of today's video games," writes Gleb Sidorkin in the Tisch Film Review. "While I agree with Galloway's general assessment that 'video games and film are influencing and incorporating each other in novel ways,' when looking at specific works of art it is important to step back from the new media euphoria and see the broader historical trajectories in which these formal issues have played out."

"Waltz With Bashir director Ari Folman is going from past Middle Eastern wars to future global utopias." Steven Zeitchik in the Hollywood Reporter: "The director has acquired rights to 'The Futurological Congress,' a short story from science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, and intends to write the screenplay and shoot the movie as a live-action/animated hybrid." Related: Erica Abeel talks with Folman for indieWIRE.

At Hammer to Nail, Michael Tully writes an open letter to Sam Mendes: "You castrated Revolutionary Road."

In the Guardian, Stuart Jeffries has a little fun with a study "by psychologists at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University who claim that romantic comedies make viewers unrealistic about relationships. They found that fans of films such as You've Got Mail and While You Were Sleeping often fail to communicate with their partners effectively. They didn't understand that marriage is not bliss, but a 24/7 nightmare in which your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to keep the thing from becoming a car crash. Let us disabuse these fans with sequels."

Anne Thompson talks with Emma Thompson about Last Chance Harvey, her adaptation-in-progress of My Fair Lady and the sequel to Nanny McPhee.

Emma Pearse talks with Franka Potente, who's "starring as an earnest Cuban guerilla and lover to Benicio del Toro's hairy, brooding Ernesto Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's two-part, four-plus-hour epic, Che, which opened last week. Potente spoke with Vulture from 'fucking dark' Berlin about working with Soderbergh and her upcoming book on fitness for slackers."

"Kirk Douglas, the square-jawed hero famed for saving the world, getting the girl and in moments of toga-clad inspiration declaring 'I am Spartacus!' has a new string to his bow - as MySpace's oldest celebrity blogger." Guy Adams reports for the Independent.

The Yellow Handkerchief is "a gentle, low-key road movie, centering on the eternal need to love and to trust, suffused in the humanist spirit that has won its veteran producer, Arthur Cohn, three Oscars," writes Kevin Thomas. Also in the Los Angeles Times: Mark Olsen meets The Reader's David Kross.

Nathan Gelgud in the Independent Weekly: "I'm in awe of A Christmas Tale, but I don't want to stand in silence, marveling over it; I want to break wine bottles and hoist strangers on my shoulders to celebrate it."

Tim Lucas: "Code Red, the exciting cult video label, has made my Christmas by announcing on their blog that the first-ever widescreen release of Willard Huyck's Messiah of Evil is currently being readied for DVD release next May or June."

"Released in 2000, The Way of the Gun looked like - and it was certainly sold as - a wacky post-Tarantino flick, fast-talking sing-song ping-pong dialogue and adrenalized Mexican standoffs that actually take place in Mexico," writes James Rocchi. "It's actually far, far better than that, if you're tough enough to take it."

S*P*Y*S is an "uneven spy spoof" and "was panned by critics when it was originally released and it's not hard to see why the movie has received a lot of negative press," writes Kimberly Lindbergs, "but I still think S*P*Y*S has a few things to offer potential viewers who are looking for a few laughs."

The latest addition to Scott Tobias's "New Cult Canon" at the AV Club: Reservoir Dogs.

Tom Stempel analyses another round of screenplays at the House Next Door.

Jonathan Lapper is calling on you to join a club.

New blog on the block: "Maitland McDonagh is the author of Movie Lust, Filmmaking on the Fringe, The 50 Most Erotic Films of All Time and the definitive auteur study Broken Mirrors / Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento." And she blogs.

Online listening tip. At the House Next Door, Peter Debruge, John Lichman, Vadim Rizov, Michael Joshua Rowin, Andrew Schenker, Keith Uhlich, ST VanAirsdale and Lauren Wissot discuss: "Film Critics in Peril on a Cliffhanger!"

Online listening tips. Ryland Walker Knight and Daniel Coffeen present Vinyl Is Podcast #8, while Ry and Brian Darr give us #9.

Online viewing tips. The SpoutBlog's Kevin Kelly finds "Eight Free Classic SciFi Movies To Ring Out The Old Year."

Posted by dwhudson at December 18, 2008 3:23 PM