Thomas Elsaesser, author of several books on German and European cinema, including one on Fassbinder, draws parallels to Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven:

Continued reading Film Comment. May/June 08....

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But the edgy, esoteric taste that has shaped the Labs throughout their 25-year existence belongs to [Sundance Institute Feature Film Program director Michelle] Satter, who oversees both the January and June labs. Together with a small band of associates, Satter has taken an excitingly free interpretation of the Institute's commitment to that badly abused word "diversity," and radicalized it even as the broader field of independent film sags beneath its dependence on studio specialty arms. On her watch, even the American regional and/or socially relevant dramas for which Sundance is known have been bracing specimens like Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's Half Nelson, Debra Granik's Down to the Bone and Andrea Arnold's Red Road.

Continued reading Shorts, 5/8....

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"The upcoming Austin Film Society Documentary Tour presents three exemplary films, the latest to emerge from the [University of Texas] MFA pipeline," writes Anne S Lewis. May 14. Also in the Chronicle, Jardine Libaire on the Marfa Film Festival's just-wrapped inaugural edition.

In the LA Weekly, Ernest Hardy offers a brief overview of Visualizing the Sacred: Islam on Film, running through June 7.

Continued reading Fests and events, 5/8....

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(Brian on May 8, 2008 3:07 PM) Looks like that indiewire piece is actually by Matt Sussman.

(David Hudson on May 8, 2008 3:13 PM) Thanks, Brian!

Roger Ebert's been wondering "how you could make a movie of this primary campaign," specifically, the story of "Hillary and Bill": "But where is the story?... The problem with a screenplay based on these events is that there would be a merciless sameness. Where is the drama in the story of a game of 48 innings?" And then he finds it: "The campaign was not about political positions, but about sheer desire. Hillary wanted to win, and she ran and ran and ran until there was a kind of heroism to it. Futile heroism after a point, but that's where the story lies."

Continued reading Exit right....

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Variety has the story; Anne Thompson has the press release.

Comments: Brian Brooks, Matt Dentler, Karina Longworth and Scott Macaulay.

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"I've just been informed that my position at Premiere.com is being terminated," announces Glenn Kenny. Maybe he'll be able to carry on blogging at In the Company of Glenn; maybe he'll set up new digs. Either way, while the transition will likely be tough, we hope it'll be quick, and as one comment puts it, "There must be a place that needs a damn good writer with a vast knowledge of film."

Comments: Filmbrain, Karina Longworth, Scott Macaulay and Anne Thompson.

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Meantime: "Cannes is a pleasant town - particularly, out of season. I think if old Lord Brougham were around today he would be rather happy - not terribly unhappy, anyway - at the evolution of the peaceful little fishing village he started along the primrose path." Apropos of not much, really, so begins a profile by Carlton Lake for the July 1957 issue of the Atlantic: "I arrived a little before two o'clock and I assumed that Picasso would either be eating or working, so I decided to hold off making contact until the next day."

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And if you didn't get the email, Tim Lucas has the list of titles.

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(Karsten on May 8, 2008 7:09 AM) Yup - fantastic news! It might actually help keep the disc medium alive a few more years, in my view. This is the single best argument for getting a Blu-ray player.

(Wiley on May 8, 2008 1:52 PM) I'll hold out for Criterion HD downloads.

Updated through 5/8.

Continued reading The Tracey Fragments....

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(Matt Zoller Seitz on May 7, 2008 2:24 PM) I haven't seen The Tracey Fragments and am intrigued by what I've read. However, I can think of at least one other recent example of a dramatic feature whose entire aesthetic is dependent on what Dan Sallitt calls "paneling" -- Chuck Workman's A House on a Hill, all of which is told through a sort of free-floating split-screen collage technique, with individual panels changing size and dimension from moment to moment. Workman also employs the geography-rooting technique Sallitt describes, with a "establishing shot" remaining static in one part of the frame to orient the viewer while the rest of the frame supplies inset close-ups of actors and objects. This technique was also used in certain '60s and '70s documentaries, of course, notably Woodstock and This is Elvis, but not having seen The Tracey Fragments, I have no idea whether any useful comparisons can be drawn.

(Karsten on May 8, 2008 8:14 AM) Matt: I've seen the film, and found your comparisons very useful. Have to get my hands on Workman's film - sounds good.

(tim t. on May 8, 2008 4:19 PM) check out the japanese film "love and pop". this also used split screen methods. found it more interesting and less self-conscious than mike figgis overrated material.

"[O]nly the crudest reading would reduce the overwhelming force of [John] Wayne's persona to gung-ho cheerleading for American right and American might," argues Charles Taylor in Dissent. "To be true to the contradictions and moral ambiguities of Wayne's best performances - Stagecoach, Red River, The Searchers, True Grit, El Dorado - you'd have to say he stands not so much for American power as for the American experiment—and thus for the possibility that it could all go wrong." Via Bookforum.

Continued reading Shorts, 5/7....

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"As in [Tarsem's] The Cell, the plot is a feeble framing device for what is, no more and no less, a wearying nosedive through a self-indulgent imagination, a succession of allusive images and Baraka-style jaunts to modern and ancient corners of the globe, and though The Fall lacks for the alluring empathy Jennifer Lopez brought to The Cell, it achieves something close to it through Catinca Untaru," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant.

Updated through 5/8.

Continued reading The Fall....

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"[G]ay cinema is by its very nature subversive, and the selection in the 24th annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film Festival is the first in a few years to capitalize on that potential," writes Peter Keough in the Phoenix. Tonight through May 18.

Starslyderz screens tonight at 8 in San Francisco; Dennis Harvey in the Bay Guardian: "Song interludes, heavy-metal twins, gleefully cheesy FX, and a whole lot more are thrown into this giddy campsterpiece, which pays snarky homage to everything from Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers (natch), the Power Rangers, anime, TV commercials, 1980s video games and... er, Biography."

Continued reading Fests and events, 5/7....

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"Somewhat surprisingly, given how subjective his documentaries skew, Battle for Haditha isn't a jeremiad against the war, the American administration or even the quick-triggered marines," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Even as he creates an almost unbearable level of tension in his film - mostly through deft parallel editing that draws the marines, the victims and the insurgents inexorably together - Mr Broomfield maintains a level of cool detachment throughout."

Updated through 5/8.

Continued reading Battle for Haditha....

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(Kilo on May 9, 2008 7:10 AM) I've just watched this and it is a complete fabrication from start to finish. There is a volume of evidence about what happened at Haditha, including publicly available court submissions and scores of corroborating witness testimony. Literally nothing in the film matches anything described in that evidence. I don't mean that generally either, I mean not a single detail of anything that occurred. This is not a left/right pro/anti-war thing either, you would know this if you had watched the PBS Frontline analysis of the same event. Considering the director has previously made documentaries and anyone with google can access these witness testimonies and evidence submissions, all of which appears to have been deliberately avoided, there is really no credible explanation other than he set out to create an entirely fabricated version of events. Even news websites carry information that contradicts the portrayal here, which is the most basic research you would have had to conduct to come up with those timestamps for when events occurred. Now either you believe someone in the business of making documentaries avoided ALL research which didn't even include such publicly available sources, or you come to the same conclusion.

The Siren finds Thomas Doherty's Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I Breen and the Production Code Administration to be "a frustrating book. Like a pre-Code film shredded for later release, it's the things left out that are the most tantalizing."

Follow along at home: Chris Cagle uploads a draft of his course, History of Narrative Film.

Continued reading Shorts, 5/6....

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(Jeffrey on May 6, 2008 10:50 PM) Um, hasn't the Stones' "Clockwork" attempt been common knowledge for years, if not decades?

Peter Bowen at FilmInFocus: "To understand how the Whitney Biennial fits into the film world at large, we spoke to Henriette Huldisch, who, along with Shamim M Momin, curated the 2008 Biennial." Through June 1.

Continued reading Fests and events, 5/6....

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