1. "He Was Born Apichatpong Weerasethakul, But You Can Call Him Joe": House contributor Vadim Rizov reports on the Anthology Film Archives premiere of several of "Joe's" early shorts.
["Last Friday night, people lined up around the block at the Anthology Film Archives to watch the avant-garde shorts of a Thai filmmaker whose last film made $16,000 in the US. Total. Granted, the Anthology is generally populated by the kind of deluded fools who believe that if they promote them long enough, Ron Rice and Stan Brakhage will become as famous as John Ford and Howard Hawks (that is to say, acknowledged by about 2% of the population), but it was truly startling to see so many of them in the same place all at once."]
2. "Double-oh-huh?": The title of the new James Bond film has been announced.
["Although the title may sound strange, it is actually steeped in spy lore. "]
3. "Actor’s Death May Mean Film’s End": On the status of Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus after the death of its star Heath Ledger.
["The earthbound exterior portions of the film were shot on location in England in December and January, said Graham Smith, who served as a publicist for the film up to its London wrap last weekend. The production was then set to shift to Vancouver, British Columbia, where the fantastical portions of the action were to be shot using special effects on a soundstage."]
4. "Teenager arrested in suicide hijacking plot": All to destroy Hannah Montana... (um, isn't that a good thing?)
["The teen wanted to crash the plane into a Hannah Montana concert in Lafayette, Louisiana, two CNN television affiliates in Nashville, WSMV and WTVF, reported, citing unnamed sources. The concert is scheduled for Friday night at the Lafayette Cajundome."]
5. "McCain: I'm sending Sly Stallone to take care of Chuck Norris": After you bomb-bomb-bomb bomb-bomb Iran? (:rolleyes:)
["Earlier this week, martial arts star Chuck Norris questioned John McCain's ability to serve as president, because of the Arizona senator's age — at 72, he'd be the oldest first-term president in American history."]
Quote of the Day: Josef Stalin
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Uh, still not too late to send that teen on his way FBI...
Clip of the Day: Ah UHF... love of my young life.
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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.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Links for the Day (January 25th, 2008)
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15 comments:
From the Page Six story:
Luckily, it seems that the plot of the short story — James attends a boring dinner party with a group of socialites he can’t stand and after making an offensive remark is told a story about the love affair between a former civil servant and a flight attendant — (has been nixed)
I am not being glib when I say I'd really like to see a film of that. Especially if it was in period.
(um, isn't that a good thing?)
Wow, did you just endorse suicide bombing?
Uh, still not too late to send that teen on his way FBI...
Twice?
Aren't you the guy who was ripping on Cloverfield for its manipulation of the audience using vivid 9/11 imagery?
I was joking, Joan. I thought the juxtaposition with the dual "Hannah Montana" posters was absurd enough that it would come across as such.
Ali: Me, too, Especially if it was directed by Wong Kar-Wai.
I'd like to see Daniel Craig work with Terry Gilliam.
I'd like to see Hannah Montana work with Terry Gilliam.
A new child star to scar!
And have Guillermo Del Toro produce.
Why even bother linking to that Tisch Film Review article? Couldn't you just have sent a link to the Anthology's website?
Agreed Colin, that Tisch article is all kinds of bad.
Re: Hannah
Keith -- I knew it was a joke, and you were NO WHERE NEAR John Gibson territory, but I have to admit I cringed too.
Don't hate the player, hate the game ;)
Keith, I knew you were joking, but like gccr, I winced.
If it's OK to make jokes about suicide bombing, why isn't it OK for Cloverfield to be so evocative of 9/11? Either we're cool with terrorist attacks and their aftermath -- cool enough to joke about them, anyway -- or we're not.
I feel compelled to note that the subjugation of women which is a hallmark of fanatical Islam would never allow a young woman like Miley Cyrus to create a character like Hannah Montana in the first place. Whether or not you realize it, and regardless of your motivations, you're siding with the bad guys, here. You want to slag on Disneyfied mass-produced pop stars, go right ahead, you'll hear no complaints from me. But as soon as murder starts being casually bandied about, you've crossed a line.
Honestly I, too, think the Hannah Montana terrorist threat "joke" was a bit odd and off-putting.
Just saying.
I've sure made my fair share of tasteless jokes (be it online or in real life), so I don't wanna jump in on this Keith love fest with a hypocritical fervor, but that said, I too was left slack-jawed by the gag.
I think for me it's because this is actually a really disturbing news item. Certainly had the kid succeeded, it wouldn't be something to joke about at all. The kid was 16, which means he was 9 or 10 back in Sept. 2001 and it's horrific to know that a young person's life could be shaped by those events to the point where something like this seemed reasonable and right.
You've misread my "Cloverfield" review, then, Joan. Any movie can be as evocative of 9/11 as it wishes or needs to be. But I feel that "Cloverfield", in and of itself, does it in a way that troubles me deeply, and on a much wider scale than what you accuse me of doing here. (To put it simply, "Cloverfield" isn't joking -- that's the problem.) Read the CNN article again. My perception: it's an absurd teenage suicide fantasy that could never in any possible reality succeed. It reminded me, in part, of a Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin decides to blow up his school with a jet plane and missiles. I laughed at what I perceived to be the absurdity of the situation (a Hannah Montana concert!) and translated my feelings to the Links in question with what I thought was enough context for people to see I was poking fun (four to the contrary so far, but no one ever said humor was universal. Who was it stated that comedy is the hardest of the arts to do well? And I notice no one called me out on the "Quote of the Day" being from Josef Stalin -- was it the "Looney Tunes" image tipped you off I was in jest with that one too?) This situation calls to mind a line from "I'm Not There", paraphrased: "put nothing of your own work out there... it will be misunderstood."
If I may be frank in closing, I deeply resent your characterization of me, Joan, as a casual bandier of the right to murder. If my work on this site and elsewhere hasn't shown completely the opposite of such an oppressive practice, then I don't know what to tell you except that you don't just misread my words, but me as well.
I'm done arguing in the context of this thread. It's a waste of my time. If you have anything further that you'd like a response to, please contact me via e-mail (keithuhlich@gmail.com). Or just continue posting your thoughts here... that's your right.
Clearly my sense of humor is an at times acquired taste. But I do not apologize for it.
Keith: defensive much? Climb off the high horse and own up to what you did: you made jokes about someone murdering a celebrity. Whether or not you want to admit it, it was tacky.
You were misunderstood here for at least one reason. You assumed that everyone clicks on the links and reads the linked-to articles. (Another problem is assuming that everyone is going to react to a story the same way you did.) I hadn't heard of this news item before I read this Links for the Day. I haven't read the CNN article yet; perhaps when (if) I do, I'll share your perception that the plot was an absurd teenage suicide fantasy. Absent that context, your intro comes off a lot more icky than you intended, and even with context, I doubt that questioning whether such a suicide bombing might be "a good thing" will ever be considered socially acceptable.
Regarding Cloverfield, my reading of your take on it is that it was not the movie you wanted it to be, and so you didn't like it. I somehow missed all the viral marketing and intarweb hoo-ha that preceded its debut, and I was able to enjoy it as a very cleverly constructed monster movie featuring an ultimately doomed yet heroic effort to unite two undeclared lovers. Where you saw character types, I saw reasonably sketched real people; where you heard inappropriate humor, I saw a realistic use of humor as a coping mechanism. Your mischaracterization of Beth and Rob as estranged lovers makes me question just how much you were paying attention; the two were long-time friends who had slept together and didn't know how to handle the change in their relationship, especially giving Rob's imminent departure. Your dismissive description of the behemoth contributes to my perception that you just weren't engaged enough to really watch the movie. Your review read like so much axe-grinding to me, but no matter. As Tim Gunn always says, Chacun a son gout.
The Ledger link made me check the status on another one of his future projects I had great interest in, namely The Tree of Life. The result? I was caught off-guard when I saw Brad Pitt was in talks. Jesse James was described by many to be Malick-esque; after sifting through the wheat fields with Dominick it appears Pitt wants the real deal.
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