Ever since the great humanistic film critic Manny Farber died last week at the ripe old age of 91, writer/director (and former film critic and Kael acolyte) Paul Schrader, who so eloquently has been making the tribute rounds to Farber, has been on my mind. I’ve always been a fan of Schrader’s writing – as much for his fearless risk taking as for his Travis Bickle triumphs. American Gigolo, his very-1980 follow-up to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, in which Richard Gere’s rent boy to rich older women Julian Kaye falls for Lauren Hutton’s senator’s wife Michelle Stratton while simultaneously finding himself a suspect in the murder of a “rough trick,” is typical Schrader, forever probing overlapping lurid worlds with the attention of an obsessive pathologist. Even with mediocre acting, earnest dialogue sometimes bordering on the heavy-handed, and predictable hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold asides, American Gigolo is still a fine slice of celluloid cheese, containing camerawork both sleek and fluid and that sexy sing-along anthem (“Call Me”!) complete with Debbie Harry’s French coos. Incidentally, I’ve always been a fan of male prostitutes as well. So why is it that I’ve never been a fan of this flick?

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• Paramount is putting together a new division designed to craft new video games based on both current and classic Paramount films. You know what that means…”I Drink Your Milkshake” for the Wii!!!
• New York’s state Senate and Assembly are expected to soon announce a compromise on the tax credit issue that was left in the lurch when governor Eliot Spitzer resigned to spend more time with his soul-crushing self-hatred. The new deal will favor the Democrat-led Assembly’s plan, which aimed to increase tax credits on below-the-line costs, thus supporting the state’s filmmaking infrastructure over luring flashy out-of-town productions.
• 2008’s total box office is so far 3 percent above 2007’s, but that’s mostly due to that 3D Hannah Montana thing, and 2007 holdovers like Alvin and the Chipmunks––not a single action film has grossed over $100 over the past three months. And that’s not going to change this weekend, although both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter seem confident that 21 will do well, and Stop-Loss will not.
• Director Alexis Spraic, producer James Scurlock, and Bunim-Murray Productions are joining forces on a documentary about the “globalization pioneer” who founded DHL.

• Advancing the dangerous notion that an Oscar is the first step to the Nobel Prize, Variety asks An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim and producer Laurie David to confirm that “the film played a part” in Al Gore’s Nobel lauding. Meanwhile, the Guardian reveals that the film’s recent battle for educational clearance in Britain was engineered by “a Scottish quarrying magnate who established a controversial lobbying group to attack environmentalists’ claims about global warming.”
• According to Pamela McClintock, Across the Universe has managed “by the far the best showing among specialty releases so far this fall” by drawing repeat visits from teenage girls. Meanwhile, the under-marketed expansion of The Assassination of Jesse James was, as could only be expected, a failure, grossing less than $400,000 on 163 screens.
• Taylor Hackford will direct his wife, Helen Mirren, in Love Ranch, about “a couple who opened the first legal brothel in Nevada and the violence that resulted when their relationship was tested by infidelity.”