1. "Golden Globes go silent": My life is over... and no parties?!!
["Before the sun sank over the real O.C. Monday, NBC apparently hit the do-not-resuscitate button and canceled Sunday night's scheduled telecast of the Golden Globes. Now there, was that so hard? The only trouble is, the network is replacing the regular telecast of the event, run by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, with a beyond-bizarre patchwork that will combine a "press conference" to announce the winners with perhaps some sort of film-clip presentation. It feels like the butler dropped dinner en route to the table, then scraped it all up and tried to serve it anyway, as if nothing were amiss. "]
2. Discussion is brewing over at Dave Kehr's site about the National Society of Film Critics awards. More awards news from indieWIRE: "15 Documentaries Named to New Shortlist; Festival Programmers, Doc Insiders Unveil New Nonfiction Awards"
["The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' recent announcement of the short list of films competing for the best documentary Oscar stirred frustration among a community of filmmakers and insiders back in November. Fueled by online discussion via blogs, a coalition within the nonfiction and film festval community is launching a new outlet to celebrate the best documentary films of the year. Seeking to challenge the results of other institutions, filmmaker AJ Schnack, a vocal critic of the Oscar list, has enlisted the support of online independent film distributor IndiePix and the opinions of a host of North American film festival programmers to launch a new nonfiction filmmaking awards event, set for March 18, 2008 at IFC Center in New York City."]
3. "Oh so pretty. . .: Announcing the Deeply Superficial Blog-a-Thon, Feb. 1-8": Prepare yourselves...
["So here's hoping you'll join us for the Deeply Superficial Blog-a-Thon, running from February 1-8. You could write an extended treatise on a work where the superficial pleasures led you to a deeper understanding of the piece as a whole. Or you could make a list of people you find attractive. Or you could just post pretty pictures. So long as it has to do with something in the arts or pop culture and it's something you enjoy on some sort of shallow level, it's fair game."]
4. "Bill Gates’s Farewell": With special video appearances by a lotta Democrats. Also, Microsoft makes a purchase.
["It's hard to remember a time when it seemed weird for Bill Gates to be speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show. But when he started doing keynotes in the early '90s, Microsoft was known as a software company, not a CES stalwart that made DVD players, TVs and car audio. Gates's taking center stage was then a sign that the PC was broadening its horizons into people's lifestyles, and Microsoft was positioning itself to lead the charge. Now, of course, after 11 appearances—eight on the eve of the show's formal opening—the Bill Gates keynote is a fixture here. Someone was quoted last week as saying that he's like the pope of the industry—which would make his regular Sunday-night presentation the benediction that blesses the orgy of commerce to follow. But this year's appearance marks an ending. Gates is leaving his full-time work at Microsoft this summer, and 2008 will be the last time he kicks off CES."]
5. "If Your Hard Drive Could Testify ...": it would sound like this.
["Rummaging through a computer’s hard drive, the government says, is no different than looking through a suitcase."]
Quote of the Day: Herman Melville
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): From Le Bonheur (1964).
Clip of the Day: The Shitsu snore.
_____________________________________________________
"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Links for the Day (January 8th, 2008)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Kehr's piece is interesting, particularly the comment by Daryl Chin who offers up an informative history of the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Film Critics circle, which came into existence to counter the Academy Awards, and now are used as a harbinger of same. Seems that if you stick around long enough, you're doomed to be absorbed into the mainstream.
Leonard Cohen knows the score:
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Are there other people who are a bit relieved that the awards shows may be downgraded this year because of the strike?
I always thought the sheer number of awards shows in the first two months of the year was getting ridiculous.
I don’t think anyone, apart from the incongruously self-indulgent Holywood Foreign Press, is all that bothered about the lack of a Golden Globes ceremony this year. Their supposed importance is but a self-perpetuating myth, and, when it comes to serving as harbingers to the Oscars, their track record is not spotless. When they do mirror the eventual Academy Awards, they hardly come across as oracular, but instead as early manifestations of a general consensus. Worse still, the TV awards have almost no relevance whatsoever, arriving either too early in the game, or too late.
It was Jim Emerson, last year, who pointed out the risible lyrics of the choice song from Dreamgirls that opened the ceremony, which went: “One night only, one night only, That's all I have to spare, One night only, Let's not pretend to care. ” On second thought, maybe the song wasn’t that inappropriate. I can’t recall the last time anyone even bothered to pretend.
Where did you get that Le Bonheur picture? Did you, perchance, get early access to Criterion's Varda set?
Post a Comment