Shorts, 5/4.

By David Hudson on 05/04/2009

Girish takes the title of his latest entry, "A Cinema Haunted By Writing," from Bill Krohn's 1977 interview with Serge Daney.

"This is plainly a bumper season for Luc Moullet," writes Jonathan Rosenbaum, who introduces us to two new books and a collection of shorts.

"It's a strange, exhilarating, terrifying feeling when your book arrives, fresh from London, on your front porch," writes Nick Rombes, offering a sample from Cinema in the Digital Age: "The scan is lo-res: the pages and images in the book itself are on clean and sharp, on nice, thick paper."

30 years after he originally wrote it (though, of course, it's since been revised), Alex Cox's "10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the Spaghetti Western" is just out in the UK. In the Financial Times, he traces his life-long love of the genre. Via Movie City News.

Glen David Gold ("Carter Beats the Devil") has a new novel out, "Sunnyside." Malcolm Jones for Newsweek: "Gold concentrates on the two subjects - the movies and World War I - that arguably set the course for the 20th century, then ups the ante by exploring how those cataclysmic forces intersected. Standing at the center of all this audaciousness is none other than Charlie Chaplin. And that's where the trouble starts." Related: Jason Rice interviews Gold for Three Guys One Book.

Shawn Levy's "Paul Newman: A Life" is "a fast-paced, relentlessly chronological 'clip job.' Insight is left to the reader," writes John Barron in the Chicago Sun-Times. "Still, it is fun to ride along on such an eventful course."

British actor Shane Briant "is focusing his attention on writing and he has recently completed a psychological thriller called 'Worst Nightmares' that will be released May 12," writes Kimberly Lindbergs. "I've admired his film work for many years so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to ask Shane Briant a few questions about his early movies and current writing projects."

"Slumdogging It: Rebranding the American Dream, New World Orders, and Neo-Colonialism," William Anselmi and Sheena Wilson, Film International.

"The latest issue of the Noir City Sentinel, trade rag of the Film Noir Foundation, hits the streets today," notes Vince Keenan. "A donation of any amount gets it delivered to your in-box. 24 pages packed with noir news that's piping hot and ice cold."

Good to see the new "Life in Film" column online; every month, "frieze asks artists and filmmakers to list the movies that have influenced their practice." Gerard Byrne: "'Live and Let Die' (1973) was the first. I was four. 'Star Wars' (1977) was the second. I was eight. There were others in between, but the third was 'Stop Making Sense' (1984). I was 16 and adolescent. That film incited riotous responses from a feverish audience in the Ambassador cinema in Dublin where it was the late show every Friday. I was a regular in this madness, which usually ended with police intervention."

Also: "Alex Bag and Harmony Korine rose to fame (and infamy) in the mid-1990s," writes Bruce Hainley:

Appearing on the covers of the hippest culture mags, showing at the right galleries, living notoriously hard and fast, they made some of the most compelling work of the time, which combined a punk energy with comedic brilliance and no small amount of heartbreak.... Within the last year both artists have "returned," Bag with a new video for her first solo museum show [clip], Korine with his first feature film in a decade ["Mr Lonely"]. Although rarely, if ever, discussed together in the heydays of their initial acclaim, both Bag and Korine have arrived in the (dreaded?) zone of mid-career presenting works which deal with the doubts about and problems of how to acknowledge the notoriety of youth and yet move on to something else, darker and searching. By retaining all the strengths and perversity of their earlier work, never shunning the complex modes of conveying the personal, both artists achieve something resonant with all the gloom, but resisting it, the feeling of a paradigm shift, emotively freaked: political consequence delivered in a guise altogether beyond the gargoyled regime of the properly "political."

And: "Shot in seven educational facilities in Birmingham and Oxford in 1976-7, the New Zealand artist Darcy Lange's 'Work Studies in Schools' consists of black and white video recordings of various classroom sessions (history, science, art, English literature), and interviews with pupils and teaching staff about those sessions." Tom Morton: "Transferred to DVD, and shown on a series of deftly installed flat-screens in the Ikon's gallery spaces, this scarred and flickering footage describes a lost world in which school masters in flares and longish, collar-licking hair resemble the hip polytechnic lecturer Howard Kirk, protagonist of Malcolm Bradbury's popular campus novel 'The History Man' (1975). The socially divisive Eleven Plus test (which determined whether pupils attended more academically-focused state grammar schools or secondary modern schools, in which simple practical subjects were taught) was in wide use, and the now commonplace experience of appearing on camera still had a whiff of the exotic."

Glenn Heath introduces the Film of the Month: "On the surface, Michael Cimino's debut film 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' (1974) appears to be a standard Clint Eastwood vehicle, co-starring Malpaso regulars George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis along with a young and spry Jeff Bridges as the titular Lightfoot. It's a heist film with comedic trimmings and road movie ruminations, all framed by a changing view of the West. However, looking at it in historical context, when American audiences were still reeling from the devastating social and political conflicts of the 1960s and early 1970s, 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot' presents an uncomfortable and complex clash of ideals between a naive, empowered youth and a disgruntled old-guard."

For the London Times, David Hutcheon heads down to Küstendorf to meet Emir Kusturica.

"Ben Stiller has been set by Participant Media to direct 'Help Me Spread Goodness,' a drama with comic overtones," reports Michael Fleming for Variety.

Ryan Gilbey profiles Quentin Tarantino for the Observer. Related: the cinetrix on the T Magazine's indulgence: "Ewwww!"

"10 Things Movie Critics Won't Tell You." A list from SmartMoney.

Robert Horton lists the "Ten Best Movies" of 1989.

It's "comeback" day at the Guardian: Peter Bradshaw on Russell Crowe and Vanessa Thorpe on Winona Ryder.

"Got an email from Nate last night with the news that rocker/actor/leftist Kiyoshiro Imawano died yesterday at age 58," writes Ryan, who posts a couple of clips at Same Hat! Same Hat!. "Kiyoshiro might be best known to English-speaking audiences from his hilarious role as Richard in the Takashi Miike film, 'Happiness of the Katakuris.' He also performed in another Miike film, 'The Great Yokai War.'" Via Cargo. More from Chris MaGee.

Online listening tip #1. David Greene talks with Dennis Hopper about "Easy Rider" @ 40 for NPR.

Online listening tip #2. This week's New Yorker features JG Ballard's story "The Autobiography of JGB"; Tom Shone discusses the adaptations of "Crash" and "Empire of the Sun."

Online listening tips. The Museum of the Moving Image's Pinewood Dialogues are back. The latest additions: James Toback and Jim Jarmusch.

Online viewing tip. The New Yorker again. Evan Osnos talks about the work of Jia Zhangke; the clips and commentary accompany a piece available only to subscribers, unfortunately.

Online viewing tips. Among the many posting the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro": Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker. Also: A second trailer for Lars von Trier's "Anti-Christ."

[Photo: "Bed and Board," Criterion Collection, 1970]

Tags: Alex Bag, Alex Cox, Charlie Chaplin, Darcy Lange, Dennis Hopper, Emir Kusturica, Film Noir, French New Wave, Glen David Gold, Harmony Korine, James Toback, JG Ballard, Jia Zhangke, Jim Jarmusch, Luc Moullet, Michael Cimino, Paul Newman, Russell Crowe, Shane Briant, Winona Ryder