Shorts, 2/26.

By David Hudson on 02/26/2009

"To be or not to be is rarely for De Niro's characters the question; the non-being is usually taken as some form of given," writes Tony McKibbin in Film International. "We needn't only think of 'Raging Bull' but also 'Taxi Driver,' 'New York, New York,' 'The Last Tycoon,' 'The King of Comedy,' 'Once Upon Time in America' and 'Casino' as well; and an interesting variation of it in 'The Deer Hunter.' What matters is the nothingness over the being, and De Niro's suspiciousness, jealousy and hubris can be understood through this impossible non-being."

"Alexander Korda's Private Lives" is a box set coming out from Criterion's Eclipse on May 12 and, after explaining why he's looking forward to revisiting "The Private Life of Henry VIII" in particular, Joseph "Jon" Lanthier writes at Bright Lights After Dark, "Charles Laughton himself said it best when responding to the Marlon Brandos and such of the world in the wake of the Stanislavski generation: 'A method actor gives you a photograph. A traditional actor gives you an oil painting.' I think he meant this to be vindictive, but it's a remarkably astute observation about how the relationship between artifice and verisimilitude has shifted over the years, in film as well as many other performing arts (it's also ironic, since Laughton portrayed Rembrandt himself in a biopic that will also be included on the Eclipse set)."

"How strongly... is acting conventionalized?" asks David Bordwell. "If it's conventionalized to some degree, we should be able to analyze it.... My own view, explored in 'Poetics of Cinema,' is that performance traditions streamline or stylize a common core of widely shared human behaviors." All in all, a fascinating entry that's difficult to summarize with a quoted snippet or two, but I should note that, further in, he points out two new essays on acting during cinema's salad years by Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs, authors of "Theatre to Cinema," at the University of Wisconsin Film Studies program wiki. Earlier: Kristin Thompson on acting and "Oscar Bait."

"The collapse of New Yorker Films is bracing proof that film collections, even the ones made of classics, are ephemeral," writes David Schwartz. Also at Moving Image Source, Anthony Kaufman: "VHS-only masterpieces like Erich Von Stroheim's 'Greed,' Sam Fuller's 'Underworld USA' and Alain Resnais's 'Providence' have always been difficult to find, but with the decline of the format (not to mention US repertory houses), the chances of seeing them are only getting slimmer." On the other hand, Michael Atkinson presents a shopper's guide: "Bellyaching about the loss of VHS's market viscosities ignores a few things about the age of digitization, which, as the music industry has learned, is just as democratizing as it is industrially profitable. There's no shortage of bootleggings to be had now, DVD-R'd from original prints, VHS copies, broadcast or other digital originals."

"At his best, [Dennis] Potter was sublime, but like many prolific geniuses, he could crank out the dross too," writes Ella Taylor in LA Weekly. "I've never yet seen a poorly scripted, directed or acted Potter play, but absent the overarching sympathy he felt for his fellow sufferers, he could come off cheap and nasty, and his work deflates like a pricked balloon when he sticks to pure naturalism. The three feature-length television dramas included in the new DVD boxed set 'Dennis Potter: 3 to Remember' - the fruit of a brief and troubled 1979 defection to commercial television with his longtime producing partner, Kenith Trodd - are at best uneven, at worst programmatic and unpleasant."

"As he continues to grow as a filmmaker, as he moves from the certified king of trailer trash to a post-modern auteur with a true and authentic vision, Giuseppe Andrews just keeps getting better and better," writes Bill Gibron at PopMatters. "'The Check Out' is his latest magnum opus, and to argue for its greatness is old hat by now. Andrews is the real deal, a maverick movie icon taking digital and homemade cinema into a realm unfathomable by less brave souls."

"From Saul Bellow playing the 'Man in Hallway' in an adaptation of his novel 'Seize the Day' 30 years after it had been first published to Michael Chabon taking abuse in a bookstore in the upcoming adaptation of his 1988 novel, 'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,' many authors can't resist the idea of essentially walking into their own novel when put to celluloid." A list from Michelle Orange here at IFC.

"Eliza Dushku, star of Fox's frosh series 'Dollhouse,' is bringing a biopic on iconic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe to the big screen," reports Tatiana Siegel in Variety. "Dushku has secured the exclusive rights and the full cooperation from Mapplethorpe's estate and has enlisted two-time Sundance grand jury prize winner and indie darling Ondi Timoner ('DIG!') to helm the film, which is titled 'The Perfect Moment.'"

"'Total Recall' is totally coming back." Borys Kit in the Hollywood Reporter: "Neal H Moritz and his Original Films banner are in final negotiations to develop and produce for Columbia a contemporary version of 'Total Recall,' the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi action movie directed by Paul Verhoeven."

Michael Ende was not particularly happy with Wolfgang Petersen's adaptation of "The Neverending Story"; now, as Emily Phillips reports for Empire, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, is teaming up with the producers of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" to give it another go.

Demetrios Matheou will have a book out later this year on new cinema from South America and gives us an appetizer in FilmInFocus.

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

The latest forgotten film that shouldn't have been from David Cairns in The Auteurs' Notebook: Berthold Viertel's "The Passing of the Third Floor Left."

Jim Emerson revives the "Opening Shots Project" with an entry from Kris Pigna on "Spider-Man 2."

Peter Sobczynski's got a big, big DVD roundup at Hollywood Bitchslap.

James Rocchi explains his move from Cinematical to MSN Movies; meanwhile, Anne Thompson notes that Movieline will be revived online, "joining the online movie gossip fray by hiring the trio of bloggers who just left Hollywood gossip site Defamer, led by Stu ('The Reeler') VanAirsdale."

At the SpoutBlog, Lauren Wissot interviews "Graphic Sexual Horror" co-director Anna Lorentzon.

In "Revanche," Götz Spielmann "isn't clinical as much as he is sacrificial, abandoning personal flourishes for the sake of his agonized characters," writes M Leary.

Josh Rosenblatt looks into the Texas Archive of the Moving Image for the Austin Chronicle, where Joe O'Connell finds that "positive signs of the down but not out local movie biz are everywhere."

"Dustin Hoffman fought back tears as he was honored by France in Paris Thursday," reports the AP. "In an elaborate event in a gilded hall, Culture Minister Christine Albanel made the two-time Oscar winner an honorary commander in France's National Order of Arts and Letters and tied a green medallion around the 71-year-old actor's neck."

"Not only Philip José Farmer but Polish poster artist Franciszek Starowieyski also died this week, something I probably wouldn't have known had it not been for the indefatigable Jahsonic." John Coulthard has links and artwork.

"When the independent curator, publisher, writer and art dealer Willoughby Sharp died this past December at the age of 72, the art world lost an iconic figure," writes Gene McHugh in Rhizome. Sharp "was also a performance artist, video artist, satellite artist and computer artist. In fact, his work at the nexus of art and technology is one of the most passionate chapters in his career, but has largely gone unnoticed.... Sharp's wife, the artist Pamela Seymour Smith Sharp, now maintains an online social networking site called Sharpville that is an actively evolving virtual extension of Willoughby Sharp. The 132 members of the network have uploaded over 300 photographs, a dozen or so video clips, twenty-four external links and maintain an active message board."

Abbey Lustgarten remembers Claude Berri in Criterion's Current.

Online browsing tip. Hisae's top 10 blog picks at click opera.

Online viewing tip #1. "The Reality Coalition, set up by five environmental orgs to debunk the notion that there is such a thing as 'clean coal,' is introducing a new ad spot directed by the Coen Brothers." And Ted Johnson's got it.

Online viewing tip #2. Matt Dentler's got a preview of "The Trouble with Lou," noting that many involved have fared very well ever since the film found favor with audiences at SXSW in 2000 and Slamdance in 2001.

Online viewing tips, round 1. Mike Doughty premieres his new video, "Put It Down," and argues - with an annotated string of videos - that many of the best music videos are made on the cheap. Related: Shout Out Out Out Out in Vue Weekly.

Online viewing tips, round 2. "[F]or the next ten months," announces Brian Gibson, "online only, Josef Braun and I, Vue's longtime critics (since 2000 and 2002) will look back, thematically, at some of the very best of the last 10 years of film, leading up to our ultimate 2000s Top Ten in January 2010." The opener's spiced up with plenty of clips.

Online viewing tips, round 3. It's "Screengrab's Ultimate Exploitation Films!!!!!!!"

[Posters: "Taxi Driver," Columbia Pictures, 1976; "Total Recall," TriStar Pictures, 1990; "Jeu de massacre," Universal Pictures, 1967]

Tags: Alexander Korda, Charles Laughton, Dennis Potter, Robert De Niro