• Erin at Steady Diet of Film has some notes on the Sundance lineup, including: “Why is rape as a weapon in war the new issue du jour? Hmm…”
• Filmbrain reports that “the finishing touches are being applied to Benten Films’ second release, Quiet City & Dance Party, USA: Two Films by Aaron Katz.” The cover looks gorgeous.
• Tom Hall recommends Mr. Warmth, John Landis’ documentary on Don Rickles, which premieres this Sunday night on HBO: “When I read that the documentary was included in this fall’s New York Film Festival line-up, I was skeptical of its place in the program. Having seen the film (and experienced the amazing press conference with Mr. Landis after the screening), I can say that its portrait of a lost era of American “show business” is both moving and deeply felt. And, obviously, laugh out loud funny.”
• Burbanked profiles Chris Thilk, friend of SpoutBlog and proprietor of Movie Marketing Madness, for the series Tales of Blogging Passion.
• “Just over 20 years ago, I thought of killing myself. Or rather, the thought was suddenly present in me, like an unwanted ghost.” So begins an amazing–and amazingly personal–post at Michael Atkinson’s Zero For Conduct, in which he talks of his own battles with said ghost in relation to the suicides of several slightly bolder-faced names, particularly Spalding Grey.

Since we last visited Trailers From Hell way back in July, the site has beefed up its offerings, and now boasts commentaries on classic adverts for films by Stanley Kubrick and Howard Hawks, as well as lovable schlock like The Revenge of Frankenstein and The Fiendish Ghouls. And thanks to a BoingBoing blurb, today I revisited the site and began to delve into the small catalogue of trailers boasting commentary by director John Landis.

Landis, whose unusual filmography spans comedy classics (Animal House), epic music videos (Michael Jackson’s Thriller) and, with the NYFF selection Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, documentary, never fails to fill his TFH commentaries with probably long-forgotten backstage anecdotes. They’re usually too mundane to be really juicy; over the above, absurdly long trailer for Psycho, Landis seems way more interested in gossiping about Alfred Hitchcock’s daily lunch menu (which apparently included an entire bottle of wine and a steak) than in taking about the film itself. “What can I say?” Landis laughs. “It’s the best Psycho movie ever!” We’ll give him that.