WHAT’S READIN’? 12.23 - nosey

Some random reads from around the way: 

Though, you have to navigate a shit-load of advertisements TVParty.com  has a great article on the  making of the classic TV special RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER by Rick Goldschmidt (author of The Enchanted World Of Rankin/Bass).  It's got everything you could ever want to know about the show that spawned the Island Of Misfit Toys.

This is a fun site with a ton of good reads.

Check out the story on the short lived late night sketch show FRIDAYS, ABC’s nightmare attempt to duplicate NBC’s successful Saturday Night Live

Anne Thompson in Variety reports on the  MPAA rejection the one-sheet for the very acclaimed documentary Taxi to the Dark Side (which is being released in January by Think Films). The MPAA (as usual) playing politics, got their panties-in-a-wad over the art work showing hooded detainee being led by US soldiers.

  I bet if instead, the soldiers were torturing some hot teenage girls in some dank basement the right-wing MPAA wouldn’t have even noticed the poster.

 Over at the excellent documentary site Edendale.Typepad, AJ Schnack’s (the director of the doc Kurt Cobain About A Son, due out on DVD 2/19/08) , has an interview with Taxi To The Dark Side director Alex Gibney about the controversy. Shocking.

 Speaking of docs the International Documentary Association made a list!  

Their 25 Best Documentaries (of all time?)  Respectfully Hoop Dreams (James 1994). Ugh, the over-rated annoying Grizzly Man (Herzog 2005) eked in at 23, just ahead of Night And Fog (Resnais 1955)!

 Maybe more fun, The Documentary Blog’s picks their own top 25.

It’s a little Errol Morris crazy, his quirky pet cemetery doc Gates Of Heaven (1980) came in number one (terrible choice) and had two more in the top ten. Yet no The Fog Of War (2003) They loved Grizzly Man even more then the IDA they put it at 15 and even have the bizarre Project Grizzly (Lynch 1996) on their list, but no Grizzly Adams.

Check out the comments section, my booze filled late night rant is in there.

 MORE LISTS

 Korean director Chang-dong Lee's Secret Sunshine toped Indiewire’s always interesting annual 25 Best Undistributed Films.  Hmmm, curious? Potheads: The Movie did not make the list.

 Todays The New York Times features my favorite film critic Manohla Dargis  top-ten of the year.  

At Rocket I’ve had some lively debates with her, about her number one There Will Be Blood.

 Her colleague A.O. Scott gave his number one spot to the Cannes winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. I’m hoping to catch tomorrow (what better way to celebrate the holidays then with a Romanian abortion flick) 

 The ever insane movie-enthusiast Roger Ebert wrote his "The Year's Ten Best Films And Other Shenanigans"

(The other shenanigans? Not sure. I glazed over, something about the flick Once).

My god, only ten! How does he get it down to ten? 

I recall one week alone, he had almost ten 4-star reviews. Mind you that’s four out of 4 stars. ****

That said, a number of the 'masterpieces' that he bestowed 4-stars to didn’t even make his top-ten including Sweeney Todd, The Golden Compass, Starting Out The Evening, The Savages and (yep 4-stars) Romance And Cigarettes. Just what made the 4-stars he gave Across The Universe more top-ten worthy then the others?

Poor Redacted (or The Blair De Palma Witch Project)  Ebert gave it a mere 3 & 1/2-stars, so it would probably barely make his top-thirty films of the year. 

If anyone feels like doing the research... Just how many films did Ebert give 4-stars to this year?

   - sweeneyrules