When was the last time you saw a short film in the theater? I don't mean an 85-minute animated movie; I mean an actual short, like they give separate Oscars to. Otherwise known as a short subject, defined (by the Academy) as anything with a running time less than 40 minutes. Chances are, unless you attend film festivals, go to see the toured screenings of Oscar shorts, or bought a ticket to Paris, Je T'Aime, it's been awhile since you actually saw a short film on a big screen.

Or, maybe I should specify that it's likely been awhile since you purposefully went to see a specifically timed screening of a short film or compilation of shorts at the theater. Technically some ads for Coca-Cola and other companies, the ones made by novice filmmakers as part of a competition or something, count as shorts. And, I'm fully aware that some arthouse cinemas, such as NYC's IFC Center, run a short film in place of pre-show commercials. But as far as I can tell, such shorts are not specifically advertised as screening at a designated time. Sure, you can go on the IFC Center's website and find out that Erik Rosenlund's Looking Glass is the short currently being shown (as it was this past week when I saw Trouble the Water there), but for most people (myself included), it's a surprise. And I doubt anyone has trekked to IFC just to see that particular film, unless anyone is a huge aficionado of frightening black and white Swedish animation.

In the earlier part of this decade, Woody Allen seemed to specialize in comedy alone -- 2000's Small Time Crooks, 2001's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, 2002's Hollywood Ending, 2003's Anything Else -- and then he opted to switch gears after 2005's genre-divided Melinda and Melinda, following that up with dramas Match Point later that year, and both Cassandra's Dream and Vicky Crisitina Barcelona in 2008. (We'll skip 2006's Scoop, since everyone else did.)

Whew. My point is, even with a comedic prospect on the horizon with next year's Whatever Works, now is as good a time as ever to relish this New York Times piece he did in the manner of a production diary on the set of Barcelona. Mind you, only "excerpts" are provided, so instead of botching them all, let me just share one favorite portion:

"JUNE 20 - Barcelona is a marvelous city. Crowds turn out in the streets to watch us work. Mercifully they realize I've no time to give autographs, and so they ask only the cast members..."

See? There's the self-deprecating filmmaker we know and love and moderately miss. I for one will take this as a sign of funnier things to come.

The dog days of summer hit the indie box office this weekend, as the top earner was a film in its third week of release. Elegy, directed by Isabel Coixet and starring Ben Kingsley and Penélope Cruz, expanded from six to 92 theaters and grossed $5,546 per screen, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. The adaptation of a novel by Philip Roth has not been universally praised, but maintains a strong 74% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes. I can't help but conclude that Penélope Cruz is the art house crowd's answer to Megan Fox, because . . .

. . . Cruz also stars in Vicky Christina Barcelona (pictured), which made $4,339 per screen in its fairly wide (692 theaters) second week. Woody Allen's latest features other pretty people such as Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson, of course, and has very good reviews behind it, yet it's silly to ignore the current Cruz heat factor.

As Eugene has already noted, Andrew Fleming's Hamlet 2 got a jump start on its wide release by opening on 103 screens, but its average of $4,223 "doesn't inspire confidence for the expansion." Will this slow down star Steve Coogan?

Suspense drama Transsiberian ($4,157 per screen, 38 theaters, 6th week), tense drama Frozen River ($4,048 per screen, 41 theaters, 4th week), and mystery thriller Tell No One ($3,643 per screen, 101 theaters, 8th week, $3.8 million total) continued to draw well, while debuting debt doc I.O.U.S.A. made $3,461 per screen at 18 locations.

Woody Allen's latest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, has earned mostly rave reviews, and it's doing well at the box office -- or, that is, it's doing well for a Woody Allen film. It opened in 10th place for the weekend of Aug. 15-17, the first time an Allen film has cracked the top 10 at all (let alone opened there) since Small Time Crooks, eight years and eight movies ago. And Small Time Crooks was the first one since Husbands and Wives, eight years and eight movies before that.

I wouldn't say there's ever been a time when Allen's films routinely made the top 10 -- he's always managed to release a total flop here and there to break up the streak -- but it certainly used to occur much more frequently than it does now. Manhattan opened at #1 in 1979, possibly the only Allen film ever to do so. (I can't find specific weekend data on Annie Hall, which is the only other likely candidate.) Various others have spent at least a couple weekends in the top 10. Still, no Allen film has ever been what you'd call a "blockbuster." His biggest hit, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), made $40 million and never got higher than 5th place at the box office. Granted, if you adjust for inflation, Annie Hall's $38 million would be about $120 million today, and that would be considered fantastic for a low-budget indie. But it's still not commensurate with how beloved and acclaimed Allen is.

Consider this: Woody Allen has directed 38 theatrical features. The Dark Knight has made more money than all 38 of them combined. Isn't it strange that one of the most iconic American filmmakers of all time can barely scrape together a crowd to actually watch his movies?

The French are at it again! After last month's unexpected breakout success of French thriller Tell No One, surely it's no surprise that French thriller A Girl Cut in Two opened on top, grossing $9,750 per screens at the two theaters in New York where it opened, according to Box Office Mojo. Claude Chabrol's latest (and perhaps last) has delighted critics, including our own Jeffrey M. Anderson ("superbly made ... highly enjoyable").

Amidst a hailstorm of reviews, interviews, and offers of threesomes, Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona debuted to $5,361 per-screen at 692 engagements, while would-be inspirational drama Henry Poole is Here failed to inspire much box office, drawing just $1,518 per screen at 527 theaters. People were evidently more interested in sin than salvation this weekend.

Two films in their second week of release continued to draw well, with literary adaptation Elegy scoring $9,000 per screen at six locations and music doc Patti Smith: Dream of Life drawing $7,000 at its sole Manhattan engagement. Meanwhile, the quiet thriller Frozen River saw an uptick in business as it expanded to 15 theaters in its third week of release, earning $4,086 per screen.

American Teen withered on the vine in its fourth week, its per-screen average shrinking to $980 as it further expanded into 105 theaters, with a cumulative total of $656,000. Brideshead Revisited slowed to $1,489 per screen during its expansion into 501 theaters, though its total has passed $4.6 million.

Gathered to talk about Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Pénelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Chris Messina and Scarlett Johansson all had similar praise for their director and writer -- even if they took different paths to get to the film. Cruz's agent actually reached out to Allen when Vicky Cristina Barcelona was in development, on the off chance Allen might have a role for her: "My agent said ... 'We found out you're doing a movie in Spain, do you want to meet Pénelope?' We met in New York, a very short meeting, which took less than one minute, and he told me 'I saw Volver, and I'm writing this story, it's not finished yet, but if it keeps going in this direction, the script, I think you could be right for this part. ...' He didn't tell me anything more about the story, or the characters, but I felt like we connected; we were laughing, and when I left, the people who work with him told me 'You've been there for such a long time.' ..."

Even after being asked, though, Cruz found the prospect of working with one of film's best-known directors daunting: "You can trust the director -- you're working with Woody Allen, you're working with a genius -- but that doesn't mean you're not going to be doubting yourself. ..."

I felt, after seeing Woody Allen's latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the way I do after I've been to an excellent tapas restaurant; I'd been presented with a series of small moments of flavor and texture and presentation, some more pleasant than others, and while the overall experience didn't add up to a full meal, it was still a sincere pleasure. Allen's been globetrotting lately -- although you can suggest that's been motivated less by some muse of artistic inspiration than by the equally beguiling, if less dignified, seductress of international financing. After several films set in London, Allen's now in Barcelona, Spain, as recently-graduated friends Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are taking some time to see the world before going back to America and futures as bright and unfixed as a sunlit fogbank.

Staying with family friends Mark and Judy Nash (Kevin Dunn and Patricia Clarkson), Vicky and Cristina take in the sights and experiences of Barcelona. Cristina's able to lose herself in the moment; for Vicky, each summer day's tempered by the certainty that summer will soon end. But one night after an art gallery showing, at an appropriately bohemian venue, Vicky and Cristina are approached by the painter whose work they've just seen, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who proposes they join him as he flies to a small town so they might spend the weekend making love. Vicky's appalled; Cristina's intrigued; Juan Antonio is a laid-back seducer with a ready counter-argument to every objection: "Life is long; life is dull; life is full of pain." Why not have a little fun? It's not enough to talk the girls into agreeing to go to bed with him, but it is enough to get them on-board the plane. ...

You may not be as attractive as Penélope Cruz or Javier Bardem, but apparently you too can experience a threesome with Scarlett Johansson. On the actress' website (ScarlettJohansson.com) there's an announcement (seen above) for a contest that begins, "Hey dude(tte) are you UP for a THREESOME WITH SCARLETT!!!?" Obviously it's part of a promotion for Woody Allen's new movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in which Johansson plays a character apparently involved in a ménage à trois with characters played by Cruz and Bardem. Oh, and obviously the prize of this contest doesn't involve sex; you merely get to be the third wheel on a movie date, or something. However, if Johansson's beau, Ryan Reynolds, is the other person, it might be still be interesting. Unfortunately, it's more likely a handler, assistant or otherwise some sort of legally bound chaperon (or is the other person a second winner? I can't make heads or tails of this crazy announcement).

Then again, if Reynolds isn't there, and you're somehow more charming and somehow have sexier abs, this could be your chance to steal Johansson away before she walks down the altar and becomes Mrs. Van Wilder. Actually, you don't even have to wait for the "date" in order to begin the wooing. To win the contest, you have to send an email detailing "your most personal and most creative response as to why YOU WISH to be included in such an awesome treat." Be tactful, though, kids. I know how some of our readers think, and I don't want to hear about any creepy dudes threatening to kidnap Ms. Johansson and bring her to Walt Disney World for a few days together.



[via Best Week Ever]

I'm not partial to overtly subjective reviews, yet I can't seem to find any better way of relating my response to Isabel Coixet's latest film, Elegy, an adaptation of Philip Roth's novel "The Dying Animal," which follows the romance between a college professor and his much younger former student. First, though, a note of appropriateness: early in the film, this professor, the Roth regular David Kepesh, who previously appeared in the novels "The Breast" and "The Professor of Desire," is lecturing about how literature, specifically Tolstoy's "War and Peace," will be appreciated differently by a reader at different points in his or her life. In ten years, for example, it may seem like a new book entirely.

Perhaps in ten years, then, or more likely in thirty, I will be able to watch Elegy again and have a new perspective. Maybe I will be able to relate to Kepesh, here portrayed by Ben Kingsley, when I am in my sixties and have similarly lived and experienced as much. Yet the fact that Coixet's film is so depressing makes me almost hope that I never actually live so long to find out. I should have known, what with the filmmaker's past films, such as My Life Without Me, with their gray atmospheres and dreary dealings with illness and death. While appearing on the outside to be a sexy drama about how one lecherous old man discovers love, Elegy is on the inside really just a slow, uninteresting depiction of a selfish fool who possibly too-late realizes that he's grown old before he's actually grown up.

Well, Woody Allen's newest film might not be generating the same buzz as his sexy Spanish romp, Vicky Christina Barcelona, but Allen is still out pounding the pavement for his latest romantic comedy. In a conversation with Duane Dudek of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Allen confirmed that he has finally christened his latest film Whatever Works. The flick stars Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood in what has been described as a "May-December romance". In the interview with the Sentinel, Allen tells Dudek that the film will be a comedy, but, "a slightly different one for me. It's a blackish comedy." -- and if there is one guy who has earned the right to be a little bitter about romance, it's Allen.

When it comes to David, it should come as no surprise that Allen is thrilled with his choice of leading man; the two seem perfect for each other. Allen tells the Sentinel, "He's got a great thing of his own. He's got a great, what would you call it, sarcastic, sour or vitriolic, wonderful, wonderful, no nonsense sense of humor." But don't feel bad for co-star Evan Rachel Wood; Allen saved a little of the praise for his latest ingénue, saying he was "stunned at how great" Wood was, despite her only being 20. So feel free to fill in your own joke about Allen and young girls here, because after 16 years of Soon-Yee jokes, I have officially run out of material.

Whatever Works is slated for release in 2009.

[Thanks: Big Screen Little Screen]