Shorts, 2/20.

By David Hudson on 02/20/2009

"The significance of ['The Whole Shootin' Match'] lies, for many, in the fact that this low-budget, made-in-Austin-by-Austin-people film impressed Robert Redford sufficiently that it inspired him to found the Sundance Institute, and morph the Park City Film Festival, where Redford first saw it, into the You-Know-What Film Festival." Glenn Kenny in The Auteurs' Notebook: "But to tout 'Shootin' Match' o'ermuch as The Film That Invented Sundance is to give some people a reason to look at it askance. And to tout it as a great example of regional filmmaking does not misrepresent the work, but tends to lead some to believe you're making excuses for it. Raggedy around the edges as it is, 'Shootin' Match' needs zero excuses. It's a fleet, funny, moving, inventive, often quite pictorially beautiful piece of work that, like pretty much all good art, locates its universality within the specifics of its world." Saw the restored print at SXSW, and Glenn's right on the money here; what's more, Watchmaker Films' DVD, out on Tuesday, is one very handsome package. Peter Nellhaus even prefers the extras to the feature.

In a new issue of Offscreen devoted to Iranian cinema, Zoya Honarmand and Gilda Boffa interview Bahman Ghobadi, Khatereh Khodaei talks with Abbas Kiarostami about "Shirin," Najmeh Khalili Mahani hails the return of Bahram Baizai with "Vaghti Hame Khabim" ("When We Are All Asleep"), Gilda Boffa reviews Samira Makhmalbaf's "Two-Legged Horse" and argues that "the new shift to sensual filmmaking (as opposed to the more metaphoric transcendental form that dominated Iran's glorious decade of the 90's) coincides with a burgeoning neo-bourgeoisie and an all-consuming growing middle class in recent years."

Mike D'Angelo presents the rousing conclusion to this year's Skandies. The #1 film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days." And here were all the nominees in all categories.

"Where are the meaty comedy roles for women?" asks Anne Billson in the Guardian, where Geoffrey Macnab talks with Guillermo Arriaga about "The Burning Plain."

"These are extraordinary times," writes John Pilger in the New Statesman. "Vicious colonial wars and political, economic and environmental corruption cry out for a place on the big screen. Yet try to name one recent film that has dealt with these, honestly and powerfully, let alone satirically."

"'Three Monkeys' largely formulates its subject - consonant with [Nuri Bilge Ceylan's] 'Climates' in particular - through an organically consistent style, with regard to its editing and also its lighting, in spite of the occasional lapse," writes Michael J Anderson. "Though not to the level of the director's supremely Tarkovskian 'Distant' or his masterpiece to date, 'Climates,' 'Three Monkeys' nonetheless remains unmistakably good filmmaking, a far more impressive work than its initial minor reputation would suggest." More from Sean Axmaker (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), Robert Horton (Herald) and Lindy West (Stranger).

"Even more than baseball, the language and psychology of football pervade national politics and punditry: representatives try to ram through legislation, their rivals scramble to block it, and the president, as some observed last week, might do an end run around Congress to the people." JR Jones in the Chicago Reader: "With the fascinating documentary 'Harvard Beats Yale 29-29,' Kevin Rafferty pulls off the neat trick of reversing this metaphor and showing how the story of the legendary November 1968 game between the Yale Bulldogs and the Harvard Crimson, which ended in a tie, expressed some of the social and ideological tensions of the day--tensions that have been working themselves out in the body politic ever since."

"At once funnier than it should be and more witless than it should have been, 'Fired Up!' is the latest addition to the wave of cheerleader movies that first hit way back in 2000 with 'Bring It On,'" writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Although the deeper reasons for this sub-genre's new popularity remain obscure - a character in 'Fired Up!' does mention that George W Bush was a cheerleader before he was president - it's clear that the spectacle of flexible and lithe young female hardbodies stretching and jumping and bending over to salute the camera with their derrières constitutes its own rationale, particularly when a studio is in the stupid business." More from Alonso Duralde (MSNBC), Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times), Aaron Hillis (Voice), Robert Horton (Herald), Mark Olsen (Los Angeles Times), Joshua Rothkopf (Time Out New York), Benjamin Strong (L), Scott Tobias (AV Club) and Michael Wilmington (MCN).

Also in the New York Times, Rachel Saltz: "You don't have to love 'Delhi-6' to admire Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, a director who has found a way to make personal films within the commercial Hindi cinema. His ambitions are vast: 'Delhi-6' is nothing less than a referendum on the modern Indian soul." More from Michelle Orange (Voice). Earlier: Jürgen Fauth.

"As a down-and-dirty insider portrait of the intersection between art and commerce, 'Eleven Minutes' proves mildly engaging thanks in part to the directors' process-oriented focus," writes Nick Schager in Screengrab. More from Aaron Hillis (Voice), Stephen Holden (NYT), Michael Koresky (indieWIRE), Allison Williams (Time Out New York) and the AV Club's Scott Tobias, who also interviews the doc's subject, fashion designer Jay McCarroll.

In the LAT: Betsy Sharkey on "Medicine for Melancholy" - more from Paul Constant (Stranger), Kathy Fennessy (Siffblog) and Robert Horton (Herald) - and Kenneth Turan on "Moscow, Belgium."

New blog on the block: The New Yorker's Richard Brody is on the Front Row. Via Jeffrey Overstreet.

Online viewing tip. At Cinematical, Monika Bartyzel has Bill Plympton's "Guard Dog."

[Photo: "The Whole Shootin' Match," Watchmaker Films, 1978]

Tags: Bill Plympton, Iranian Cinema, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Richard Brody, The Whole Shootin' Match