Shorts, fests, etc, 12/20.

For Artforum, Lauren O'Neill-Butler previews a series of films Ken Jacobs shot in the late 50s and early 60s featuring Jack Smith; Jacobs will be on hand at the Anthology Film Archives tonight for the second and final round of screenings. More from the L Magazine's Mark Asch and a lot more from Reverse Shot's mjr.

The Oldest Established Really Important Film Club is well and truly established now.

The lineup's set for Berlin & Beyond: New Films From Germany, Austria & Switzerland, running January 15 through 21 in San Francisco, and Michael Hawley takes a look.

The Berlinale announces the first six titles in its Perspektive Deutsches Kino program, plus: "29 of its total 49 screens are being equipped with digital cinema servers for the upcoming festival."

"F Scott Fitzgerald's seminal novel The Great Gatsby may have been describing the iniquities of the Jazz Age just before the country slid into the Great Depression but the award-winning Australian director, Baz Luhrmann, yesterday said Fitzgerald's story resonated with the economic excesses of today," reports Arifa Akbar in the Independent. "So much so, that he is set to make a modern version of the novel, which will allude to the present financial crisis that has brought to a grinding halt the bling-laden consumer culture that was spawned in the 1980s and 1990s."

"I am about to make a statement about ethnic Catholicism and if you don't like what I'm saying I'm ready to accept your challenge to step outside." Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt in the Daily Beast on Doubt: "Here's the statement: Had this film been set in an Italian parish setting in the Bronx, or anywhere else, it would have been a different story. [John Patrick] Shanley has written about Italians (Moonstruck) and he knows their priorities: drink your wine, eat your pasta, make love to your wife or anyone's wife and if there is a hell, well, what the hell. The Irish? That's another story, and Doubt limns the particular joylessness of Irish Catholicism." Related: Michael Guillén talks with Viola Davis.

Marshall Fine prompts another one of those must-read entries from Phil Nugent.

"I don't know if Sidney Lumet ever read the work of the architectural critic Ian Nairn - given that Roger Ebert is a fan, it's not too unlikely - but his 1972 film The Offence seems to pick up on one of his critiques of the post-war New Towns." Owen Hatherley elaborates.

"Two surprises lie in store in a viewing of A Cottage on Dartmoor," writes Ian Johnston at Not Coming to a Theater Near You. "One is the discovery that an unknown British silent film (to me) should prove to be such a delight, a finely-crafted and visually inventive example of silent cinema at its height. The other surprise is that this should be the work of Anthony Asquith, the son of a British Prime Minister (as everyone likes to mention, in order to stress his upper-class origins) who is known today as a solid practitioner of mainstream products from the days when Britain actually had a properly functioning film industry."

The Tale of Despereaux "is a pleasantly immersive, beautifully animated, occasionally sleepy tale," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.. "The main difference between the source and its adaptation is that while the book exudes charm, the movie leans toward cute, a substitution that largely speaks to the influence of Disney on animation." More from Peter Bradshaw (Guardian), Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times), Robert Horton (Herald), David Jenkins (Time Out), Anna King (Time Out New York), Sheri Linden (Los Angeles Times), Peter Martin (Cinematical), Tim Robey (Telegraph) and Tasha Robinson (AV Club).

"Perhaps the best thing that can be said about My Name Is Bruce is that Bruce Campbell has in fact appeared in worse movies," writes Mark Olsen in the Los Angeles Times, where Gina McIntyre talks with him. Campbell, that is. Also, Kenneth Turan on Gomorrah, "a vividly panoramic film about a pitiless world of criminality."

Britain's Independent: "Sir Ian McKellen's performances in Shakespeare's tragedies will be a highlight of Christmas television this year. So why does he get no pleasure from watching them?"

In the Guardian, Marina Hyde tosses off a few good laughs in the face of Tom Cruise and Valkyrie; Nicole Kidman and Australia; and "Nunchuk Holmes: A Guy Ritchie Movie."

Dennis Perrin looks back on SNL: The Complete Fourth Season: "Gilda Radner performed at an inspired level, her comedic gifts shining in sketch after sketch. She remains perhaps the most natural cast member SNL ever featured (along with Eddie Murphy), and no matter the material or character, Gilda made it work and work well. There's a warm energy to her performances, even when she played Candy Slice, the drunk, drugged out punk singer based loosely on Patti Smith. Candy Slice is rude, obnoxious, barely cogent, yet in Gilda's hands, she's also vulnerable and somewhat sweet. It's as if Judy Miller, Gilda's energetic little girl character, grew up to become queen of CBGB."

Online viewing tip #1. Sujewa Ekanayake posts the first nine minutes of his doc-in-progress, Indie Film Blogger Road Trip.

Online viewing tip #2. David Phelps has the trailer for Three Resurrected Drunkards in the Auteurs' Notebook.

Online viewing tip #3. A promo spot from Jamie Stuart: "Production Designer Bill Groom on Making Milk's San Francisco Real."

Online viewing tips. "As masterful as Frank Langella's performance is in Frost/Nixon, powerfully capturing the former president's shabby grandeur, his Richard Nixon is a shadow of the real thing. Or more accurately perhaps, it is the shadow of a shadow." David Schwartz, Chief Curator at the Museum of the Moving Image and the Living Room Candidate, elaborates - and illustrates with clips.

Posted by dwhudson at December 20, 2008 3:22 PM