Links for the Day (May 7th, 2008)

1. "An Alphabet of Cinema": Girish Shambu's latest post, on an essential Peter Wollen publication.

["Wollen delivered “An Alphabet of Cinema” as the Serge Daney memorial lecture at the Rotterdam film festival in 1998. It was then published in the New Left Review in 2001, and also appears in Wollen’s essay collection, Paris Hollywood: Writings on Film (2002). For each letter of the alphabet, Wollen chooses a cinema-related word that is important to him, and devotes an entry of a few paragraphs to it. There are two reasons why I particularly love this essay: its loose, ‘bloggy’ format; and its conversational clarity. Wollen was aiming the lecture at a general festival audience rather than a roomful of fellow academics."]

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2. "The Wow Factor": At Edward Copeland on Film, Josh R. reviews the revival of South Pacific.

["By my estimation, my vast reserve of cynicism had thoroughly evaporated less than five minutes into Bartlett Sher’s breathtaking, bountiful and altogether extraordinary new production, which not only restores South Pacific to its former glory, but is one of the few musical productions in recent memory to qualify as a truly transcendent theatergoing experience. Not for a fraction of a second does the show betray its age, or feel even remotely like a relic of the past; delivered with gripping immediacy and an even more dazzling sense of theatricality, it is the kind of unqualified triumph that comes about as close to perfection as any show can be reasonably – or unreasonably – be expected to do. As an improbable side note, it’s also the first show I’ve seen in a long, long time that runs the risk of turning me into a cockeyed optimist; if South Pacific is any indication of what the theater is still capable of, I’d say that looking ahead, there’s every reason to look on the bright side."]

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3. "Reel Politique: Movie Review, The Theme of Quarantine": By DK Holm for The Vancouver Voice.

["But a more interesting new trend is the “quarantine” movie. This is a film that posits the arrival of some aggressive and murderous agent or a grave disease that necessitates the isolation of a building, town, or country. The recent, derivative action film Doomsday kicked off the trend, with its premise that Scotland is the sealed off land of disease spreaders, within whose walls no one knows what goes on. And there is even a comedy variation, in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay , the sequel to the popular (on DVD, anyway) pot comedy, although the humor is more cloacal than cannabis oriented, and the boys only spend about five minutes of screen time actually in Guantanamo Bay."]

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4. "Blue": M.S. Smith of Where the Stress Falls on My Blueberry Nights.

["Wong's adeptness at creating visual mood, his characteristic use of color and compression, framing and close-up, inform this film thoroughly, and he appropriately mirrors the varied landscapes and settings of his new-found territory (the United States) in different spaces, from the cramped quarters of small cafes and seedy bars, to the wide-open Nevada desert. In addition, I don't think anyone has ever photographed Rachel Weisz more beautifully. Whether she's half-drunk or enraged or in a saddened stupor, or reclaiming remnants of her dignity in her character's own limited way, Wong's camera truly flatters her."]

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5. News of the moment: "Obama takes big step ahead in Democratic race" (By John Whitesides in The Washington Post, through Reuters); "What McCain expects from federal judges" (By Maeve Reston for the Los Angeles Times); and "Ryan Seacrest may be replacing Larry King". (Um... wha?!!)

["Barack Obama took a big step toward the Democratic presidential nomination with an easy victory in North Carolina on Tuesday, and Hillary Clinton vowed to keep her struggling campaign alive after narrowly winning Indiana. The results helped Obama widen his lead over Clinton in the grueling Democratic duel for the right to face Republican John McCain in November's presidential election with just six nominating contests remaining. Both candidates looked ahead to contests next week in West Virginia and May 20 in Oregon and Kentucky, but Clinton was nearly out of opportunities to change the course of the race. "]

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Quote of the Day: Marquis de Vauvenargues

"It is not true that equality is a law of nature. Nature has no equality. Its sovereign law is subordination and dependence."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Claude Monet's painting "Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil", which sold Tuesday at auction for a record $41.4 million.



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Clip of the Day: What if Grand Theft Auto was around in NES days?

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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. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.