Shorts, 6/27.

By David Hudson on 06/27/2009

"Werner Herzog is famous for his cinematic depictions of obsessives and outsiders, from the El Dorado-seeking Spaniard played by Klaus Kinski in his 1972 international breakthrough, 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God,' to Timothy Treadwell, the doomed bear-worshiper of his 2005 documentary, 'Grizzly Man.'" Lawrence Levi in the Los Angeles Times: "Herzog's own reputation as an obsessive, not to mention daredevil and doomsayer, was solidified by 'Burden of Dreams,' a documentary chronicling Herzog's trials while filming 'Fitzcarraldo' in the Peruvian jungle in 1981. 'Conquest of the Useless: Reflections From the Making of "Fitzcarraldo"' comprises Herzog's diaries from the three arduous years he worked on that movie, which earned him a best director award at Cannes in 1982 yet nearly derailed his career. It reveals him to be witty, compassionate, microscopically observant and - your call - either maniacally determined or admirably persevering."

As Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" turns 20, The Root runs a special anniversary package.

"Beautifully written and expertly translated, Paola Marrati's 'Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy' brings much needed clarity to Deleuze's two monumental works on cinema," writes Joe Hughes. Also in the new issue of Rain Taxi: Louis Phillips reads Woody Allen and Spencer Dew reviews "Wait for Me at the Bottom of the Pool: The Writings of Jack Smith": "This collection voices such rage while also offering a broader context for understanding the pageantry and passion of Smith's films and his understanding of his own political agenda."

Woody Allen, by the way, "will follow his London based project with a romantic drama set in Paris," reports Chris Evans for Screen.

"Examined Life" is now a book, a companion to Astra Taylor's documentary.

In The Auteurs' Notebook, Andrew Grant and Daniel Kasman talk with Wai Ka-fai about collaborating with Johnnie To on "Vengeance" and about his solo work, particularly "Written By." Also: the week that was, as summed up by Glenn Kenny, the "Movie Poster of the Week," from Adrian Curry - and David Cairns talks with Bruce MacDonald about "Pontypool."

"Though a rep from CAA would not comment about it, we hear Bob Bookman at the agency is shopping the film rights to Thomas Pynchon's August-dropping new novel from Penguin, 'Inherent Vice,'" whispers Rachel Deahl in Publisher's Weekly.

"There are 61 laughs, three dildos, one gyrating, talking penis, an anal bleaching and one very pissed-off politician in 'Brüno,' which should be enough to make any movie fly," writes Variety's Todd McCarthy. "But there is also a pronounced nasty streak to the innumerable provocations staged by the title character that curdles the laughs and wears out the flamboyant Austrian fashionista's welcome within the picture's brief 82-minute running time."

And the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt writes: "We all knew Borat. Borat was a friend of ours. Bruno, you're no Borat.... While pushing the PC envelope in new and imaginative ways as well as the MPAA's R rating, especially insofar as the male member is concerned, 'Brüno' is only intermittently funny and all too often the 'ambushes' of celebrities and civilians look staged. The movie is even a tad - dare we say it? - tedious."

AO Scott profiles Agnès Varda; "The Beaches of Agnès" opens at Film Forum on Wednesday.

Also in the New York Times, Rachel Saltz: "Kabir Khan's 'New York' looks at America after 9/11 through a Bollywood lens - and it's less distorting than you might think. The story, which engages issues of ethnic profiling and terrorism, hinges on loyalty, love and friendship, a holy trinity of Hindi cinema."

Jeremy McCarter on Christopher Bigsby's "Arthur Miller: 1915 - 1962": "Miller still casts a singularly long shadow on our national literature. Call it his moral stature. Until his death in 2005, he struck many as a saint of the left. Here was the intellectual who wrote for the workingman, the celebrity who reacted to his breakthrough Broadway success by taking a minimum-wage position in a box factory, the patriot who not only refused to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee but rejected what would have been an even easier way out: the chairman's offer to let him go in return for a photograph with Marilyn Monroe."

And also in the NYT Review of Books: Allen Drury's novel 'Advise and Consent' turns 50 this summer (and of course, it'd be adapted by Otto Preminger in 1962). Thomas Mallon finds that "most of the subject matter remains recognizable. Drury's 99 men and lone woman [of the US Senate] wrestle with the issue of pre-emptive war, the degree of severity with which lying under oath must be viewed, and the way the coverup is invariably worse than the crime. Part of what kept the book on the best-seller list for 102 weeks is its comforting assumption that many politicians come to Washington hoping to do good."

"Glen David Gold's first novel in the eight years since his bestselling, much-loved debut 'Carter Beats the Devil'" is a "massive, hugely researched explication not just of Chaplin and early Hollywood, but of America's involvement in the first world war, of the French trenches and the Russian front, of wild west cowboys and Bolsheviks, of Mary Pickford, Kaiser Wilhelm, Douglas Fairbanks, Leon Trotsky, and eventually even Rin Tin Tin." Patrick Ness in the Guardian: "Gold has said he cut 'Sunnyside' from its original 1,000 pages. Perversely, I wonder if that might have been the better book, a real once-in-a-career epic which, with more room for the facts to breathe, would paradoxically move faster and therefore feel shorter. This is a novel that inspires impatience, not least because so many good ideas are fighting to get out that none of them quite gets the airing it deserves."

At Movieline, Kyle Buchanan talks with Alexis Dos Santos about "Unmade Beds."

Steve Dollar talks with Robert Kenner about "Food, Inc." for Stop Smiling.

"'Tony Manero' is deliberately grim, even ugly, but it carries a perverse, deadpan sense of black humor," writes Steve Erickson in Gay City News.

In Moving Image Source, Leah Churner presents the second in a two-part history of public access television.

Tilda Swinton is riding a bike along the route of what was once the Berlin Wall; the Hollywood Reporter's Scott Roxborough explains; and here's a photo gallery.

Reminder: "Ten Days' Wonder: The Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon" is going great guns.

Chris MaGee lists his "Top Ten Japanese LGBT Films."

Online scrolling tip. "Jiri Trnka (1912 - 1969) is well-known (relatively-speaking) for his brilliant animated puppet movies," writes Will at A Journey Round My Skull. "He has even been dubbed the 'Walt Disney of the East.' Recently I discovered that this Czech artist also illustrated children's books throughout his career."

Online fiddling around tip. "They're supposed to be bloody and terrifying, but some horror film posters are so ridiculous they elicit chuckles instead of shudders," writes Benjamin Maack at Spiegel Online. "Many B-movie fans treasure this unintended humor and have become collectors of these monuments to bad taste. Read the story and take the quiz."

Online listening (and browsing) tip. ABC Radio National's Amanda Smith talks with South African photographer Pieter Hugo, "who is fascinated by all things Nollywood."

Online viewing tip #1. The trailer for Ricky Gervais's "The Invention of Lying," via Quint at AICN.

Online viewing tip #2. Cargo talks with Stephen Dwoskin. Also, Ekkehard Knörer has found eight minutes of Michael Haneke talking about "The White Ribbon."

Online viewing tip #3. "Fans of Edmund T Gréville's 1959 juvenile delinquent classic 'Beat Girl' will find Ken Hughes's 'The Small World of Sammy Lee' comes as a revelation," writes Cathi Unsworth in 3:AM Magazine. "It's set in exactly the same milieu that Gréville populated with Christopher Lee, Adam Faith, Ollie Reed and The John Barry Seven. But its depiction of the caustic strippers, razor-wielding enforcers, wideboy shysters, bored brasses and hepcat jazzers is so much more kosher. It's not just the exemplary cinematography of Wolfgang Suschitzky, nor Hughes' direction of his own corking script that brings this world to such vivid life - it's the towering central performance of Anthony Newley as Sammy." And she's got the opening credits sequence for you, too.

Online viewing tip #4. David Poland talks with Jean-Jacques Beineix ("Diva," "Betty Blue").

[Photo: "Fitzcarraldo," Anchor Bay Entertainment, 1982]

Tags: Agnès Varda, Alexis Dos Santos, Allen Drury, Anthony Newley, Arthur Miller, Astra Taylor, Brüno, Bruce MacDonald, Gilles Deleuze, Glen David Gold, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Paola Marrati, Robert Kenner, Spike Lee, Wai Ka-fai, Werner Herzog, Woody Allen