is a webcast featuring rockcritics.com alumnus Aaron Aradillas. Listening right now to a chat about Dirty Harry with the Movie Geek crew and critic David Edelstein… very cool stuff.

Two clips of various directors and critics discussing the auteur theory. Featuring Robert Mitchum, Frank Capra, Pauline Kael, John Frankenheimer, Peter Biskind, Peter Bogdanovich, Elwy Yost, et al. A fairly intelligently edited piece (cf. the back and forth sequence between Capra and Phillip Dunne), though no strong critical proponents of auteurism could apparently be bothered to chime in: the closest you get to Andrew Sarris is a dazzling shot of his book!

File under “Lightly Likable.”

• Part 1
• Part 2

Sentiment doesn’t seem to have a high price if you’re Peter Fonda; unless, of course, you’re auctioning it off for gain. Ranching it in Montana must be costly.
Let’s hope Dennis Hopper doesn’t pull an O.J. before the WWII bronze star, American flag decal and real Rolex (you didn’t think that was the one he threw away), are put up for bid.
But does he still have George’s helmet?

Great recent interview with movie critic David Edelstein by Paul Morton in Bookslut.

Sample:

Natural Born Killers. I couldn’t even sit there while it was going on. I got up and walked around the back of the theater. I was so upset. I didn’t want to leave because I felt like I had to see the whole thing if I was going to denounce it. And I was going out with this girl at the time and she said to me [in a whiny voice], “I don’t understand. The Godfather was violent.” And that’s how I knew I wasn’t going to end up with that woman. Anybody who could dismiss my horror, my physical visceral fury at Natural Born Killers by saying, “The Godfather is violent.” No, there were plenty of reasons why we broke up. That and the fact that when we saw The Lady Eve, my favorite movie, she says, “I don’t get it. It’s not so good.” Also, she was bored by McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Three strikes.

(See also Aaron Aradillas’s 2005 interview with Edelstein in rockcritics.com)

Came across a bizarre reference to rockcritics.com today on, of all places, Roger Ebert’s website (in regards to, of all people, the guy who plays Deuce Bigalow):

[Rob] Schneider retaliated [to a bad review] by attacking [critic Patrick] Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: “Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind … Maybe you didn’t win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven’t invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who’s Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers.”

Reading this, I was about to observe that Schneider can dish it out but he can’t take it. Then I found he’s not so good at dishing it out, either. I went online and found that Patrick Goldstein has won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award [my emphasis], and the Publicists’ Guild award for lifetime achievement.

Say what? Huh?? Strangely enough, I wasn’t even invited to the ceremony for this gala event. Got me to thinking, though: if there was in fact a rockcritics.com awards show:

• who would host it?
• what would the categories be?
• who would be the winners?

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Movie critics Andrew Sarris and John Simon on “Charlie Rose” discussing Leni Riefenstahl (yeah, I know, I’d rather they were discussing Pauline Kael or Weekend at Bernie’s, but what can you do?). This particular segment starts around the 25-minute mark.

A pretty great interview with Jerry Lewis on “The Dick Cavett Show,” talking about movie critics, and with some particularly interesting thoughts on that “dirty old broad” Pauline Kael (don’t misunderstand–Lewis respects her). It’s around the 4:20 mark.