"With regard to longevity and productivity, not to mention talent, the only peers of the great Spanish director Luis Buñuel (1900–83) are his contemporaries Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock," writes J Hoberman, opening a review of Román Gubern and Paul Hammond's Luis Buñuel: The Red Years 1929-1939 for the Nation. Read of the day, obviously.
More reading. Carlos Saura on the five films that have most influenced his own work (via Criterion Cast).
Ed Howard on four shorts by Maurice Pialat.
Pat Jordan for the New York Times Magazine on "How Samuel L Jackson Became His Own Genre."
For the Wall Street Journal, John Jurgensen talks with Sissy Spacek about her forthcoming memoir, My Extraordinary Ordinary Life (via Movie City News).
In Reverse Shot, David Ehrlich argues that Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) is "a vital (if imperfect) chapter of this beloved saga, as necessary for its hero as it was for its maker."
In other news. Mike Everleth has the lineup for the fourth edition of Migrating Forms: "The fest begins and ends with political films directed and curated by Eric Baudelaire. His latest work, The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years without Images, opens the festival on May 11; while a pair of films – Masao Adachi & Kôji Wakamatsu's Red Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War and the Dziga Vertov Group's Ici et Ailleurs closes it on May 20." At New York's Anthology Film Archives.
Kim Nguyen's War Witch and Lucy Mulloy's Una Noche were the big award-winners at the Tribeca Film Festival last night. The big roundup's got mini-roundups on each film and notes on other award-winners.
New York. Tomorrow evening at Light Industry: Thom Andersen and Noël Burch's Red Hollywood (1996).
The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Richard Peña introduces The Space Between: A Panorama of Cinema in Turkey, opening today and running through May 10.
Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse (1958) sees a week-long run at Film Forum. Nick Pinkerton for the Voice: "The keystone of an impeccable cast, [Jean] Seberg narrates the inexorably tragic events of last summer's vacation in a washed-out voiceover… that sounds like the Shangri-Las' rueful tune 'Past, Present, and Future,' another elevation of pop frippery to tragic art." Alt Screen's got a roundup; more from Michael Nordine (Not Coming), Vadim Rizov (L) and Keith Uhlich (Time Out New York, 5/5). Related viewing (58'01"): Joseph Lally's The Murder of Jean Seberg.
At Hammer to Nail, curator Zach Clark introduces Beneath the Valley of the VHS, a week-long series at Brooklyn's reRun Gastropub Theater. A recommendation from Simon Abrams in the L: "The heavy metal decadence that punk filmmaker Penelope Spheeris highlights in Decline of Civilization Part II: The Metal Years makes the film more docudrama than straight documentary."
Los Angeles. In the LA Weekly, Ernest Hardy previews Same Sex/Different Sex: Queer Identity and Culture, "one of the final installments in LA Filmforum's nearly year-long Alternative Projections screening series."
Also happening on Sunday, but at LACMA, is a second reading from Black Clock 15, which looks to be a remarkable issue from an alternative universe (see the March entry).
What Becomes a Legend is a series opening at the Getty Center tomorrow in conjunction with Herb Ritts: LA Style.
Vienna. Travels in Greece. In Memory of Theo Angelopoulos, 1935-2012 runs at the Austrian Film Museum from today through May 7.
In the works. Jay and Mark Duplass will adapt Tony D'Souza's novel Mule for Todd Phillips, reports Deadline's Mike Fleming.
Browsing. Etienne George's photos snapped on the set of several French productions at everyday_i_show; and "Cinecittà: Celebrating 75 Years of the Venerable Italian Studios" at Time.
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