Links for the Day (November 8th, 2006)

1. "Spreading Santorum": As it is now little more than a fond reminder of things that were... once more for the road. (With something of a sobering rejoinder.)

["Bob Casey Jr is no Rick Santorum, but on many social measures he's more red than blue. He's pro-life, and supports efforts to overturn Roe v Wade. He opposes gay marriage, and is against giving mandatory equal rights to same-sex domestic couples. He was for the war in Iraq, though he says he now considers it a mistake, and is opposed to the withdrawal of US troops. He opposes gun control, supports the death penalty, and backed the appointment of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court."]

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2. "It's Time": Andrew Sullivan says it's party time. (Or is it?)

["The House of Representatives has now become a key check on an out-of-control executive. It reflects a big shift in the minds and souls of Americans. The Senate is still unclear - but the Dems have made gains, clearly. The founders knew what they were doing. The country wants to go back to the center, to have a sane, reality-based debate about what to do in Iraq, how to rescue the looming fiscal catastrophe, and how to defeat Islamo-fascism and how to detain and interrogate terror suspects. So we have a re-balancing. I think we know enough now for this:"]

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3. "Slave to Beauty": David Thomson writes on Jacques Rivette for The Guardian.

["It is just that Rivette thinks the cinema runs the risk of turning vulgar and foolish if it starts to stress the visual over everything else. The visual is a given; it is the norm; it is the world, or its engine - and Rivette, without reservation, loves that world even when it frightens him. I doubt he has ever composed a shot without seeking both grace and an austere absence of all those signs that say: "Here is grace." Just look at Céline and Julie Go Boating, which, apart from anything else, is one of the most inspiring films about the way Paris looks in the summer, and about the illusion that we can catch its fragrance. (You can find the same compositional severity, the fierce effort to restrain beauty, in Bresson and Buñuel.)"]

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4. "Stromboli": John Flauss analyzes one of Roberto Rossellini's greatest films.

["Rossellini directed Stromboli and other films of this period as though theatrical drama had never existed. His camera covers the action with few cuts or tight framings while the interaction between characters may seem 'superficial', lacking the familiar layers of development. Essentially he tells his story without expression: dialogue does not explore its subject matter, actors don't 'act' so much as they 'behave', images are not 'beautiful' pictures of their subjects (though sometimes the subject may be intrinsically beautiful: land, sea, a human face, etc)."]

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5. "The Good Year Blimp": Robbiefreeling of Reverse Shot takes the trailer of Ridley Scott's latest to task.

["Surely if you’ve gone to see a non-talking-moose movie this year, you’ve been subjected to the trailer for Ridley Scott’s A Good Year. I just discovered that it’s actually being released next week…hell, that shit crept up on us like athlete’s foot. What this means for film culture, besides that another steaming pile of Ridley will be dropped on screens imminently, is that we will no longer be able to enjoy A Good Year’s three-minute Preview of Coming Attractions, which is so packed with every ludicrous cliché and hilariously streamlined textbook cut and musical cue that it becomes nearly self-reflexive in its predictable idiocy. There’s barely a difference between this and “Shining,” that masterpiece trailer parody that took the internet by storm last year by reconfiguring The Shining into a sappy Cameron Crowe-esque tale about “finding yourself…in the most unlikely of places.”"]
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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.