Shorts, 5/5.

By David Hudson on 05/05/2009

"The Brooklyn-born actor Dom DeLuise, who died yesterday at the age of 75, was balding and roundish even in his early thirties, when he started getting roles in movies such as 'Fail-Safe' (1964) and The Glass Bottom Boat' (1966) and on such TV series as 'The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.'" Phil Nugent at Screengrab: "If DeLuise's career had gone in a different direction, he might have gotten typecast as an urban sad sack, of the 'I dunno, what do you want to do tonight, Marty?' variety, which would have been a tragic waste. It turned out that, in comic roles, DeLuise could create his own wild man's force field, capable of tearing into a part and investing it with its own glittering, beady-eyed insanity. A skillful actor yet also a burlesque madman, he was, at the peak of his career, both a modern performer and a throwback to the vaudeville-trained character comics of early talkies." The remembrance is accompanied by a clip from "Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother."

Turn to Mark Graham at Vulture for a music video-ish highlight reel from "Cannonball Run," with Burt Reynolds, and of course, the best part of all those comedies featuring those two, the outtakes. Joe Leydon: "On the occasion of his passing, I hereby celebrate his life by offering this classic short in which man matches wits with machine, and loses." Jeffrey Overstreet picks a clip from "The Muppet Movie." Scott Marks goes for one from "Blazing Saddles." And at Movieline, ST VanAirsdale posts seven minutes from "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."

The discovery of the body of Eva Rhodes just last week, though her brutal murder probably occurred well over half a year ago, reminds the Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu that "Eva had appeared in a film entitled 'Rape' and directed by Yoko Ono. That film, the memory of which I've been trying to get out of my head ever since I first saw it a couple of years ago, is one of the most disturbing pieces of conceptual art ever made." And he tracks the history of various interpretations.

What's a filmmaker to a critic, and vice versa? Alejandro Adams sparks a conversation.

"Why Don't We Make Our Own Films In Bombay?" asks Anuj Malhotra. Indian Auteur also runs a 1992 piece by Ashish Rajadhyaksha on Satyajit Ray and realism; and a recent article by Mani Kaul, whose purpose is "to provoke debate on a basic cinematographic contradiction: a plethora of a films across the world continues to fashion awe-inspiring cinematographic spaces (stunning visuals), however, only a few are able to realize a simultaneous and direct experience of cinematographic time. With the current epidemic of 'special effects,' the awe-inspiring space has taken a turn for the worse - we appear headed for an immersion into an immaterial world."

"Angels & Demons," due in theaters worldwide weekend after next, saw its world premiere in Rome last night. The Guardian has pix and notes, but Screen, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety have full-blown reviews. "Ron Howard does a far superior job of filming Dan Brown's first Robert Langdon novel 'Angels & Demons' than he did with his lifeless blockbuster 'The Da Vinci Code' in 2006," writes Mike Goodridge. "Picking up the pace considerably and wisely trimming some of the more preposterous excesses of Brown's book, 'Angels & Demons' is all the more intriguing for its setting in the murky halls of the Vatican and dusty churches of Rome." Deborah Young agrees: "Plucking the same violent, occult strings as 'Da Vinci' while avoiding its leadenness, 'Angels' keeps the action coming for the best part of 139 minutes." Todd McCarthy: "Less turgid and aggravating than its predecessor, this cleverly produced melodrama remains hamstrung by novelist's Dan Brown's laborious connect-the-dots plotting and the filmmakers' prosaic literal-mindedness in the face of ripe historical antagonisms, mystery and intrigue." And for the Telegraph, Chloe Fox talks with Tom Hanks.

"Japan's Asmik Ace Entertainment has announced details of a long-awaited third installment in the cult 'Tetsuo' franchise, which will also mark director Shinya Tsukamoto's English-language debut," reports Liz Shackleton for Screen.

"[T]he 20th century is hard to let go of because we've surrounded ourselves with its details," writes Ignatiy Vishnevetsky in The Auteurs' Notebook. "It was a potent century - so potent the atomic bomb couldn't destroy it. We are, so far, the museum century, the boutique century; the preservation of previous culture has become a more popular issue than the creation of a new one (it could be said that we're too busy cataloging Modernism to move past it or our reactions to it); we are expanding instead of building." Somewhat related: The theme of e-flux journal #6 is "Excavating the Future."

"Last week, in the online edition of Slate's sister publication Foreign Policy, two of its regular bloggers, Stephen M Walt and Daniel W Drezner, drew up lists of what they regard as the best movies ever made about international relations. Both are eminent international-relations professors, Walt at Harvard, Drezner at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. It's no surprise that neither of them gives our own film critic, Dana Stevens - or, for that matter, Gene Shalit - the slightest cause for worry. It is a shock, though, how lightly they've dipped into their own profession's vast cultural pool." And so Fred Kaplan is all over those lists, suggesting alternatives for all but three titles and then: "Off the top of my head, here are 25 that neither Walt nor Drezner mention - and that, to my mind, beat all of theirs."

The Siren's been catching up with French classics lately.

Happy 65th, Jean-Pierre Léaud.

Vanity Fair's John Lopez passes along Hollywood's reply to Manohla Dargis and AO Scott's memos.

"I finally got around to watching 'Visions of Light,'" blogs Chris Cagle, who finds it "doesn't do all that much to show the spectator what makes for cinematographic art."

"Philip Roth's first book, 'Goodbye, Columbus,' was published 50 years ago this week." The NYT's David Kelly quotes at length from " what the author had to say about it in a 30th-anniversary edition" and adds: "I had the misfortune of seeing the movie 'Goodbye, Columbus' before reading the novella, and consequently have never been able to get Ali MacGraw and Jack Klugman entirely out of my mind. (Richard Benjamin is more easily forgotten.) If you've never seen it, don't worry: the filmmakers updated the story for a release in 1969, when the sexual mores at the heart of the matter made no sense at all."

Thomas Groh's got links to all six parts of Newsarama's interview with Alan Moore, "examining the themes and ideas around his creation."

For Slant, Adam Keleman talks with Guillermo del Toro about "his work with his fellow Mexican filmmakers and how much his life will change once principal shooting begins on 'The Hobbit.'"

For the National - the English-language newspaper of Abu Dhabi - Akiva Gottlieb talks with Andrew Grant and Aaron Hillis about Benten Films, which, as noted earlier, has just picked up "Fish Eyes" as its first theatrical release.

"EW has confirmed that Scarlett Johansson's first directorial effort, a movie short starring Kevin Bacon, has been left on the cutting room floor of the upcoming anthology film 'New York, I Love You.' But, contrary to the many Internet rumors, it's not because the footage was unwatchable. 'It's not a bad piece at all,' says one insider on the film. 'In fact, I quite liked it.'" And it'll be appearing online to promote collection.

"Energia, the creators of 'Star Wreck' and 'Iron Sky,' [yesterday] publicly launched their latest project, a new web video series about cyber crime. The production was launched on Wreckamovie, the collaborative movie making community and as it's first task the Wreckamovie community came up with a working name for the new production: 'Project WORM.'"

NASA and Warner Bros are teaming up to make "Hubble 3D."

Hugh Jackman will produce and star in "Ghostopolis," an adaptation of an upcoming graphic novel by Doug TenNapel. Borys Kit has details in the Hollywood Reporter. Related online listening: Cargo's interview with Jackman.

"Fox's 'Used Guys' has a new lease on life," report Michael Fleming and Dave McNary. "Three years after the studio pulled the plug on the futuristic comedy that had Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller onboard to star and Jay Roach directing, Fox is aiming to rebirth 'Guys,' originally centered on a pair of obsolete pleasure clones, as more of a romantic comedy." Stiller is still attached; Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton ("Little Miss Sunshine" may direct. Also in Variety: "Christina Aguilera will make her screen debut for Screen Gems in 'Burlesque,' a contemporary musical that Steven Antin will direct. Antin wrote a script that was revised by 'Erin Brockovich' scribe Susannah Grant."

Idris Elba, the first black James Bond? asks Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian. His reaction: "Who wouldn't like to play Bond? Do I think it will happen? No, but I've got what it takes to do it. I can run around, flirt with ladies and drink. Plus I'm English."

Dennis Cozzalio is looking forward to a summer at the drive-in.

"Fugitive director Roman Polanski will not return to the United States for a hearing this week where his lawyers will seek to quash a decades-old sex case against him, court documents showed." The AFP reports.

"Tony Award Nominations Are In!" shouts Gabriel Shanks, who's been following the run-up to this announcement with great anticipation.

New blog on the block #1. Details Are Sketchy, "Comedy news and views from Jeff Kreisler, with an IFC twist."

New blog on the block #2. Alex Gibney ("Taxi to the Dark Side") is now blogging for the Atlantic.

Online listening tip. Matt Singer and Alison Willmore: "[T]his week's IFC News podcast looks at a few of our favorite portrayals of siblings on screen, from slapstick silly ('Step Brothers') to Hollywood gothic ('What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?')."

Online viewing tip #1. At Cargo, Ekkehard Knörer's got Chris Ware's "Quimby the Mouse."

Online viewing tip #2. The first three minutes of Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro."

Online viewing tip #3. "Megaproducer Jerry Bruckheimer's honorable life's mission to bring us the most spectacular chase sequences, slo-mo explosions, and ham-fisted dialogue $150 million of Disney's money can buy resulted yesterday in dire circumstances: A Times Square location shoot for 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' - which stars Nicolas Cage in a modern retelling of the classic conjuring tale that somehow involves speeding Ferraris - went horribly awry when a stunt driver crashed into a Sbarro's." Movieline's Seth Abromovitch has video from the New York Post.

[Photo: Dom DeLuise in "History of the World: Part I," Brooksfilms, 1981]

Tags: Alan Moore, Alejandro Adams, Alex Gibney, Angels & Demons, Benten Films, Dom DeLuise, Eva Rhodes, Hugh Jackman, Philip Roth, Ron Howard, Satyajit Ray, Shinya Tsukamoto, Tom Hanks, Yoko Ono